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THE EDEN TABLEAU 



BIBLE OBJECT-TEACHING 



21 Stn&s 



By CHARLES BEECHER 



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which God ordained before the world unto our glory 

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PREFACE 



The wide diffusion of paradise legends among ancient nations 
has been often pointed out. We trace everywhere, in some form, 
the tradition of a golden age, a garden, a tree of life, cherubic 
guardians, a serpent or dragon, sacred rivers, and a happy pair. 
In the Isis of Egypt we seem to discern the Isha of Genesis, and 
in the Adima and Iva of Hindu legend, the Adam and Eve of 
Eden. 

All the great ethnic religions begin with a cosmogony. Pri- 
meval speculation is very bold. It strikes back to the foundation 
of the world. It even goes far back of earth's creation. The idea 
of successive destructions and regenerations of the world, and 
successive reincarnations of its inhabitants, is fundamental to ar- 
chaic cosmogony. 

There have been ages on ages of spiritual history, reigns of the 
gods, and sublime conflicts before mundane periods began. Spirit 
is before matter, in the most ancient schemes of thought. The 
spiritual universe is vastly older than the material, said the an- 
tique faith. And we are reminded of a saying of Lessing : " La 
premiere et la plus ancienne opinion, dans les matieres specula- 
tives, est toujours la plus vraisemblable, car c'est celle sur la- 
quelle s'est arretee la raison de Thumanite dans sa sante pre- 
miere." l In Chinese legends we find a war in heaven, and a 
casting down of the dragon, at the beginning of the world, before 
the creation of the human race. And this dragon is the strong 

1 In speculative matters, the first and most ancient opinion is most probably 
true, since on it human reason, in its pristine health, has reposed. 

1 



2 PKEFACE. 

and wise Lung, a winged serpent, the common symbol of the Chi- 
nese empire, the mighty spirit of all the elements. 

Japanese legends speak of a combat between the glorious spirit 
of light-splendor, the Son of Heaven, and his brother, who wished 
to rob him of his office as ruler of heaven, in which the latter 
was vanquished and confined in the earth, which was darkened 
from its previous luminous condition. 

It is a fundamental principle of Brahmamcal doctrine, that all 
creatures were originally pure", ethereal, celestial, and long en- 
joyed their freedom, till one of the highest spirits of heaven, 
through envy and jealousy, revolted from the Eternal. Then the 
great Being determined to create the material world, and banish 
thither the fallen spirits in order to their purification and recovery. 

The Persian legends teach that the world before our present one 
was once destroyed, whereby the earth was completely covered 
with water. This sea had a honey-sweet foam, which gathered 
upon it like cream upon milk, forming the earth-essence. On this 
earth-essence these spirits fed which had sunk down out of God's 
heavenly light, and became men; whose bodies were originally 
without want (or defect), beautiful, and of glorious color and 
spirit nature. They radiated light, floated in the atmosphere, and 
nourished themselves only on bliss. Till that time there had been 
in the world neither sun, moon, nor stars ; neither night nor day ; 
no time; no male, no female; but only essence and essence. So 
soon, however, as they had eaten of the cream of the earth, their 
body became dense and heavy, it lost its beauteous brightness, 
then darkness came into existence in the world, and consequently 
sun, moon, and stars. 

The doctrine of Parseeism has by some been represented as an 
absolute dualism, — Ahriman, the evil principle, being eternal. 
Others contend that this is a later form, and that the primitive 
Parsee doctrine described Ahriman as originally created a being 
of light. 

Among Egyptian legends was that of the war of the Titans, be- 
fore the creation of the present human race. On their defeat they 
were placed in the fixed stars, until Ment, the creative spirit, built 



PKEFACE. ° 

the mortal bodies of men, and assigned each of them to one of the 
fallen spirits. Those spirits which failed to be restored to purity 
by one earthly life must return for another. 

The further back we go in human history, the more familiar the 
mind of the nations seems to be with grand conceptions of this 
sort, namely the priority of the spiritual universe, and of its his- 
tory, to all the developments of this earth. 

The religions of the ancient world centered in their Mysteries, 
the underlying idea of which was regeneration, or a return to pre- 
incarnate purity and holiness. In those mysteries not only Arkite 
emblems were used, but paradisaic also, especially the serpent. 
Closely connected with the mysteries also was the phallic cultus — 
the worship of ancestors, and the incantations of magic. The 
combination of these and other elements more or less manifestly 
paradisaic in their reference, recorded themselves not merely in 
books, on the written page, but in the more imperishable form of 
rituals, and funeral customs, and architectural structures. Tombs, 
and mounds, and dolmens, and pyramids, and temples, are more 
durable historic records of early human faith and practice than 
printed or written pages can be. 1 

The idea of the spiritual origin of all things — the priority of 
the spiritual world over the material — has ever seemed to the 
author the sublimest feature of ancient ethnic systems. If we are 
to borrow aught from those systems, surely, it should not be their 
baser, but their nobler, grander elements. 

Schopenhauer is correct in affirming metempsychosis to have 
been the belief of the majority of mankind, and the foundation of 
all religions, but he errs somewhat in saying, except Judaism and 
the two religions that have sprung from it. a 

There can be no doubt that metempsychosis is but a corruption 
of the primitive doctrine of a celestial pre-existence, which, as 

1 This idea is well elaborated by Fergusson in his History of Architecture, 
and other works. 

2 "Cette doctrine originaire des temps les plus recnles et les plus nobles de la 
race humaine, toujours ete repandue sur la terre comme croyance de la ma 
jorite des hommes et comme fond de toutes les religions a l'exception du 
Judaisme et des deux religions qui en sont sorti " 



4 PREFACE. 

Keil shows, was the original faith of Israel, not borrowed from 
Platonic sources, and which was bequeathed to the early Christian 
churches. As the sacramental system rose, however, based on a 
too literal acceptation of paradise emblems, this ancient faith died 
out. Those mighty systems of Oriental thought, in all their grand- 
eur and their gloom, gathered about the morning horizon of Chris- 
tianity, like vast clouds. about the rising sun, 1 kindled with all the 
glories of the gates of paradise by that veiy orb which they dark- 
ened, and finally eclipsed. In rejecting the strange and wild 
dreams of the Gnostic, and the Manichean, the churches unhappily 
rejected some elements of truth that gave to those alien systems 
all their seeming beauty, while retaining some of their elements 
of error that gave them all their moral ugliness. 

Yet traces of those sublime conceptions lingered. The mind of 
Christianity for a thousand years revolved earnestly, though, 
alas, fruitlessly, about the question how the death of Christ de- 
stroyed man's enemy and ransomed man. It was a favorite idea 
with Augustine that the redeemed of mankind were to fill up the 
void in heaven made by the fall of angels. 2 Says a recent author : 
" These scattered hints and speculations of early writers, after- 
wards more fully developed by some of the deeper thinkers of the 
seventeenth century, that regard the early (pre-Adamic) history 
of the world, and the fall of angels, as in some sort of connec- 
tion, are certainly not unworthy of our consideration. 3 

These scattered hints and speculations have received their ablest 
embodiment in the work of Keerl, who holds that the earth, origi- 
nally self-luminous, like the fixed stars, was the original princi- 
pality of the unfallen Lucifer and his angels, and was wrecked 
and thrown into chaos by their fall. 4 

1 Neander. 

2 Deus " dc movtali progenie merito justeque damnata tantura populura gra- 
tia sua colligit, ut inde suppleat et instauret partem qua? lapsa est angelorum ; 
ac sic ilia dilecta et superna civitas uon fraudetur suorum nurnero civium quin 
etiam fortassis et uberiore laetatur" 

3 Ellicott. Sermons on the Destiny of the Creature, p. 28. 

* Der Mensch das Ebenbild Gottes. Von P. F. Keerl. Basel, 1861. A 
work of great ability and beauty, to which the author is indebted for a portion 
of the facts referred to in this preface. 



PREFACE. 5 

The prevalence of these paradisaic emblems, and the specula- 
tions accompanying them, in ancient and modern systems, is a 
fact to be accounted for, — especially by such as deny the historic 
character of the Eden narrative, and the reality of the spirit 
world and spirit intervention. 

Celsus in early times, and Volney and others in modern, adopted 
the theory that Christianity was borrowed from older ethnic sys- 
tems. To this the fathers and reformers replied that paganism 
borrowed from the Jews. The ablest presentation of this hypoth- 
esis is by Theophilus Gale, in his celebrated work, "The Court of 
the Gentiles" (Oxon, 1672), which the modern disciples of Celsus 
and Volney would be interested and profited to peruse. With the 
study of Sanskrit, the translation of the Zendavesta, the decipher- 
ment of Egyptian and Assyrian inscriptions, a new era in the 
mythological discussion was introduced. One of the earliest and 
ablest works on the Pneumatic side (the side of faith in the spirit 
world and in revelation), was that of Faber, "Origin of Pagan Idol- 
atry," about the beginning of the present century, which, though 
marred by diffuseness and repetition, is a storehouse of informa- 
tion, and its line of argument not easily met. The Apneumatic, or 
mythical, theory is, that like causes produce like effects in like cir- 
cumstances. The powers and faculties of the human mind being 
ever the same, and the forces and movements of Nature the same, 
the results have been essentially similar in all ages. Faber replies, 
this might suffice for all great natural phenomena, but cannot 
apply to things wholly arbitrary. Nations the widest asunder in 
time, space, circumstances, and blood exhibit an astonishing agree-, 
ment in paradisaic emblems, which are obviously arbitrary, and 
this can only be accounted for on the hypothesis of a common par- 
adisaic origin. This argument, reinforced by pre-existence, it is 
impossible for the mythical theory to meet. Faith in a primeval 
paradise, either terrestrial or celestial, or both, has been the uni- 
versal heritage of man, recording itself not merely in uncial man- 
uscripts, but in letters of stone and earth big as pyramids and 
mountains, and perpetuated in arbitrary emblems, and rites, and 
sacrificial ceremonies, from age to age and generation to genera- 



b PREFACE. 

tion, among peoples the widest apart in locality, lineage, and lan- 
guage. Of all paradisaic legends, that of Moses is simplest, purest, 
most in accordance with good taste, most elevated and ennobling 
in its suggestiveness, most free from incongruous elements, and 
most readily yields a consistent and lofty spiritual meaning under 
the application of the simple law of Analogy. It is therefore 
presumptively true, and, until a better one can be found, is to be 
studied with reverence as throwing light upon the sublime but 
mysterious question of the past history of the spiritual universe. 



CONTENTS, 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Prelude, 9 

II. What is the Bible? 14 

III. Parallelism, . 20 

IV. Before the Curtain, 29 

V. Curtain Rises, 37 

VI. Tree op Life, 45 

VII. Tree of Knowledge, 51 

VIII. The First Adam, 60 

IX. The Second Adam, 67 

X. The Serpent, 73 

XI. The Attack, 86 

XH. The Examination, 94 

XTTT. Sentence on the Serpent, 107 

XIV. Sentence on Woman, 107 

XV. Sentence on Man, 77 

XVI. Coats of Skins, 79 

XVII. The Curtain Falls, . . . . '. .91 

XVIII. The Eden Tabernacle, 102 

XIX. The Cherubim, 134 

XX. The Four Rivers, 140 

XXI. Comparative Theology, . . . . .153 

7 



THE EDEN TABLEAU. 



CHAPTER I. 

PRELUDE. 

The present is a transition era of religious thought. 
The Bible was never more earnestly assailed, or more 
ably defended. The developments of science, the gen- 
eral progress of human thought, the methods of modern 
destructive criticism, combining with other causes, have 
produced a general feeling of a need of re-statement of 
conventional beliefs. At the same time, the Bible was 
never more widely demanded, more profoundly studied, 
or in one sense more popular. A monopoly of it would 
be to any publishing house a princely fortune. Trans- 
lated into one hundred and fifty languages, it interests 
minds of all races, climes, and latitudes, as no other book 
has ever done. And some of those most familiar with 
anti-biblical learning, minds who have sounded all the 
deeps (and shallows) of modern criticism, are recoiling 
from the extremes of denial, and uttering positive affir- 
mations of great interest. 

" I wish the Bible to be more loved and honored than 
it is now, not less ; I wish it more a source of hope and 
faith than now ; to bring us nearer to God than it now 
does ; to make Christ more interesting, and more of a 
true Teacher, Master, Friend. The better we under- 

9 



10 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

stand it, the more we shall revere it ; not with a blind 
homage, but with an intelligent admiration." *• 

Modern spiritualism is often anti-biblical in tone, but 
some of its leading writers bear testimony in the same 
direction. 

" No people were ever made worse by the general 
reading of the Bible. Corruption and vice have never 
generally prevailed in any community where it has been 
honestly regarded as the rule of faith and action ; and if 
I believed that the work in which I am now engaged 
could have the effect of withdrawing attention from 
the Bible, I would consign every written page to the 
flames." 2 

" By confessing ourselves to be Christian spiritualists," 
says the same writer, " we declare our high estimation of 
his (Christ's) character and teachings : it is also a decla- 
ration that we profess to imitate his example, and make 
his teachings .... the rule of our daily life, as they 
are the groundwork of our faith." 3 
* The author invites such as may honor him with their 
attention, both assailants and defenders of the Bible, to 
what may be called a study. He proposes to attempt a 
more thorough and consistent application of the laws of 
analogic interpretation, to one of the most interesting 
and vital portions of the Bible, f The whole controversy 
about the inspiration of the Bible must largely turn on 
exposition. There are more Bibles than one. There is 
the real Bible, which is always the same, and there is the 
idea of the Bible, which varies in different minds and 
ages. This must have a bearing on the discussion ; for 
as a man may set up in the temple of his thought a false 

1 James Freeman Clarke, in Unitarian Affirmations. 

2 Eugene Crowell, M.D., Primitive Christianity and Modern Spiritualism. 
Vol. II. pp. 502, 503. 

3 The Religion of Spiritualism, p. 39. 



PRELUDE. 11 

idea, under the name God, either to attack or to adore, 
so a man may set up in his inner thought-world a false 
idea of the Bible, to defend or to defame. 

Controvertists too often forget that words are not 
things. Each man, shut up in his castle, looks out 
through his colored window-panes on the landscape, and 
supposes that all other men see it as he does, couleur de 
rose, or green, or done in India-ink. When the writer 
hears people out yonder (seemingly earnest and philan- 
thropic) call the Bible a bad book, he wonders what they 
are thinking of. Evidently their Bible (or idea of Bible) 
and his are not the same. . He can only try to show what 
he sees ; for to him it seems as though if people out there 
could only see the same thing, they would feel as he feels. 

In attempting an original study of this kind, one should 
of course be familiar with the original ; should consult 
the best authorities ; pay modest attention to the judg- 
ment of scholars ; but should not surrender the right of 
private judgment, even in the interpretation of a Hebrew 
or Greek sentence. He should remember that the sacred 
writers were often in high frames of thought and emo- 
tion, in which language was to them but an imperfect 
medium of expression. The academic life is not always 
adapted to bring the mind into kindred states, without 
which no amount of technical skill can give insight. 
The obscure parish minister, or home-missionary on his 
frontier post, in his anguish of poverty, bereavement, 
and martyrdom in the conflict against world-majorities, 
yet full of the Holy Spirit, may be brought more nearly 
into the same frame of thought and emotion with the 
sacred writer, than many more pleasantly situated in a 
worldly point of view, and who are greatly his superiors 
in the minutisB of scholarship. Such should indeed be 
modest towards man, but importunate with God, that 
they may have an " unction from the Holy One, and 



12 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

know all things ; " and should never forget that " He 
who is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is 
judged of no man ; " and that " the Spirit searcheth all 
things, even the deep things of God." x He should pon- 
der long on that pregnant question, " Do ye not know 
that the saints shall judge the world, and if the world 
shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the 
smallest matters ? " 2 If the ablest Hebrew scholars are 
about evenly divided on the use of a single simple word, 
cannot a village pastor who knows a little of Hebrew, 
or a Sunday-school teacher who knows none at all, judge 
between them ? 

The greatest part of the Bible is written in language 
so simple, that there is but little for scholarship to do. 
One needs no magnifying-glass to read coarse print. 
Our noble English version may be improved and embel- 
lished, but it is in the main practically as good and reli- 
able, to the common Christian, as the original. 

The Bible has one simple and sublime object — which 
is to make us acquainted with God. He speaks, moves, 
acts, lives, and his heart beats on every page, from the 
first to the last. He is, if one may use the expression, 
the Hero of the sublime story of Redeeming Love, which 
begins to be told in Eden, and winds up in the New 
Jerusalem. He is the heart, soul, and life of the Bible. 
A loving, adoring heart that finds Him there, cannot 
have been a bad interpreter. Yet it is the effect of the 
Bible to stimulate the soul to ineffable longings for 
nearer access, and more unveiled vision — a more full 
and final revelation of His glory. " We groan within 
ourselves," and the entire universe, intently gazing for- 
ward, groans with us with desire. 

A man brings you a crystal aquarium, beautifully 
sculptured, and filled with the trophies of the sea. He 

i 1 Cor. ii. 10-15. s 1 Cor. vi. 2. 



PRELUDE. 13 

places it on your center-table, and tells you that is the 
ocean. The water is brine, the sand is from the sea- 
shore, the pebbles are from the cliffs, and the algse and 
little fish are all marine. You say, " Aha, I have seen 
the ocean ! " But some sultry day, in the heart of sum- 
mer, you wend your way, panting and oppressed, toward 
the beach ; and, as you draw nigh, the whole air is im- 
pregnated with the exhilarating saline breath, and bur- 
dened with the muffled roar ; and as you come upon the 
verge the ground trembles, and you feel the vibration 
through all your frame. And there, out there, the long 
foamy rollers come thundering upon the sand, thousands 
of tons' weight in each stroke, as they have thundered 
for millions of years. And now, as you gaze over the 
illimitable expanse, you say with awe, " Now I have 
seen the ocean ! " Yet you have only seen another 
aquarium, larger, grander, more sublime, but the whole 
ocean you have not seen, and cannot see. 

Even so it is with the visions and revelations of God, 
that have been vouchsafed hitherto in this weary world. 
But the prophetic word is lighted up with passages of a 
brighter day. There is to be a day when " the glorious 
Lord shall be unto us a place of broad rivers and 
streams," — a clay when His glory shall fill the earth 
like a great deep, and rise above the mountains ; and 
the night is far spent, and that day is at hand ! We 
hear almost the detonation of its waves — we feel almost 
the vibration of the solid shore as the hosanna breaks over 
us, — " as it were the voice of many waters, and as the 
voice of mighty thunderings. Alleluia ! for the 
Lord God Omnipotent reigneth." 



14 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 



CHAPTER II. 

WHAT IS THE BIBLE? 

The Bible is many-sided. Men are one-sided. That 
is the reason why minds differ so widely. Each sees but 
a part, and can contain but a part. We may describe 
the Bible as containing the constitution and laws of the 
first republic that ever existed ; extracts from the na- 
tional annals ; sacred poems ; idyls ; biographical sketches ; 
a series of prophecies ; the life of an obscure Galilean 
carpenter ; and extracts from the lives and correspond- 
ence of his pupils. 

These writings, especially the oldest, make one think 
of a traveler's portfolio of manuscript, printed without 
preparation for the press ; printed, but not edited. So 
much the more striking the individuality of the writer. 
The materials for Genesis, Moses may in part have 
acquired in the halcyon days of youth, when he was the 
habitue of palace and temple, initiated into the secrets 
of the priesthood of the Nile. The intermediate books 
he must have composed under heavy burdens of respon- 
sibility, with slender conveniences for literary work. 
Deuteronomy was the product of his riper age. His task 
was well-nigh done. He was on the border of the 
promised land. He was near the close of life ; naturally 
there would be something in circumstances to give 
smoothness to the flow of his style, music to his diction, 
elevation and sublimity to his anticipations of the future. 



WHAT IS THE BIBLE ? 15 

Much more if we suppose the seer lifted into his most 
ecstatic moods, and moved to utter sublime and far- 
reaching prophecies. 

The subsequent historical portions of the Old Testa- 
ment are curiously jumbled. They remind us of the 
tilted leaves of the great geological volume with many a 
break and fault and dike. Seemingly heterogeneous, 
and selected by chance, they after all contrive to carry 
a connected chain down through the ages — a certain 
plan one can catch sight of, regularly and consistently 
unfolding. There is a Nation there that is doing and 
saying and suffering remarkable things, not a tithe of 
which is recorded. As John says of Jesus, so it may be 
said of Israel, " If all were written, the world itself could 
not contain the books." Then the poems of the Bible, 
the Psalms, and most of the prophecies, how they are 
confusedly thrown together, centuries perhaps interven- 
ing between the date of two consecutive psalms. What 
would a modern poet think to have his works subjected to 
such an ordeal ? What would be the fate of poems thus 
thrown together, some known, others incognito, mostly 
disconnected from the circumstances occasioning them, 
and often interspersed with lists of genealogy and ex- 
tracts from national annals ? 

The whole Old Testament is about as unchronologically 
arranged as possible ; and (severest test of a literary work) 
is" seen only through a translation, an excellent one in- 
deed, all things considered, yet inevitably defective, and 
especially defective in the most delicate and spiritual 
parts ; Canticles, for instance, or that exquisite relic of 
patriarchism, the book of Job. 

Translations from an Oriental tongue to an Occiden- 
tal ; from ancient to modern ; by theologians rather than 
poets, — scholastic logicians and philosophers, scarce 



16 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

more than half reformed from the errors of medieval 
asceticism, — still seeing the fair material universe 
through smoked-glass spectacles ; and then, the whole 
still further obscured by being broken up into chapters 
and verses, often to the serious injury of the sense ; it is 
not wonderful that men think the Old Testament is not 
infallible. But there is the Nation. Behind the words 
we see the live nation. The more imperfect the record, 
the more wonderful the life that was there, the national 
life of that body politic. . 

Now there are things described in that nation's past 
history which mean more than the words describing 
them. We cannot force a meaning upon the words. 
But the things (once described) are eloquent. The 
things themselves have whole volumes of meaning. 
Israel has something to say — more than Israel's penmen 
have said. Israel's self — her sins, her sorrows, her rites, 
her deeds, her whole story. But Judaism is only Patri- 
archism remodeled. Christianity is but Judaism ful- 
filled. The Bible with all its manifoldness is one, by 
the unity of a great idea. It is a sublime oratorio, the 
subject proposed in Eden, the discords all resolved in 
the New Jerusalem. The relative imperfections are a 
perfection. Fancy a perfect revelation according to 
modern notions of authorship and book-making, handed 
down to us as the product of such a people, in such times, 
places, and circumstances. Its gilded perfection would 
be its highest imperfection, like the rouge on a harlot's 
cheek. Give us the Bible rough as Mount Sinai, stained 
and hoary with age, but honest through and through. 
The faults are those inseparable from antiquity, and the 
imperfection of the human instrumentalities employed. 
All the objections of sincere inquirers will disappear 
when they see a wise and benevolent plan underlying 



WHAT IS THE BIBLE? 17 

the whole, and when they apply the correct principles 
of interpretation which are the principles of common- 
sense. They will find some things in the Bible they 
never anticipated, and some things wanting which have 
been commonly supposed to be there. 

But one thing they will find, and that is that God is 
the hero of the Bible. Not Moses, nor David, nor 
Isaiah, nor Israel ; but the Lord. And they will find 
that however his character may grow in quantity with 
successive writers, there is no evolution in quality, but 
it bursts upon us full-fledged from the first. 

It is this that makes the Bible so dear, because our 
Father is its hero. It is the child's book, the homesick, 
orphan child astray on the mountains. It is the lover's 
book, where the virgin daughter of Israel finds the por- 
trait of her absent Lord. Its style has all the abandon 
of Oriental pantheism, while it is yet severely mono- 
theistic. It is a temple full of images, countless as the 
gods of polytheism, but they are ideals, not idols, and 
all graven images are an abomination to him. He sit- 
teth on the circle of the heavens, and all the nations in 
his sight are as the fine dust of the balance, yet he 
gathers the lambs in his arms, and carries them in his 
bosom. 

These analogies are such as interest a refined, and 
even sentimental, age, yet they are also such as did suit 
a savage or semi-civilized age. 

But the remarkable fact is, that while allowing this 
wide range of imagery, the unsymmetrical and the 
savage is the exception, as in a landscape the uncouth 
and the grotesque. The main current of imagery flows 
through the channels of family relationships, husband, 
father, and correlated ties. If it be asked, What anal- 
ogies, on the whole, have these writers made most 
2 



18 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

prominent ? the answer would be, Those expressed by 
the words, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So striking is 
the fact that a devout writer, who is far from sympathiz- 
ing with the patristic dogma of the Trinity, declares 
frankly, " If Unitarianism were understood to deny the 
doctrine of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, or even to 
waive and ignore it as unessential, then should I repu- 
diate the name, renounce the connection, and desire that 
my name were expunged from the muster-roll of the 
denomination." 1 

In short, the Bible is unique in this, that the Lord is 
the real hero, and is holy, the enemy of nothing in the 
universe but sin. Now those who regard these writings 
as mere legends must concede that the very unaccount- 
ableness of this perfect, divine character, becomes a 
powerful argument for its truth. 

" Is it conceivable that an idea of this order — a con- 
ception so majestic, and so vivid and real, and so truth- 
fully majestic, should, even if once it had been formed, 
have floated itself onward, unbroken, through the way- 
wardness of so many uncontrolled human minds ? On- 
ward, unbroken it has come, even from the remote age 
of its first expression, down to the latest age of its last 
utterance. Nothing that is incredible and inconceivable 
can be more inconceivable than is a supposition of this 
kind." 2 

Especially is this argument enhanced to those who, 
like Eugene Crowell, believe in the reality of direct- 
spiritual revelations, not only in this, but in all past 
ages. This character of the Lord, contrasted as it is 
with that of Baal and other ethnic deities, must be the 
true one. The prophets of the Lord were real media 

1 Dr. Hedge, Unitarian Affirmations, p. 22. 

2 Isaac Taylor, Sp. Heb. Poetry, p. 267. 



WHAT IS THE BIBLE ? 19 

of the Holy Spirit, in whom the infirmity of the vehi- 
cle was at the minimum, the power of the Spirit at the 
maximum. 

That Spirit, striving with ineffable earnestness to 
utter himself through imperfect minds, in an imperfect 
language, agonizing to subdue a stubborn nation and a 
wayward world to implicit yet free submission to him- 
self — that Spirit is the only living and true God, whom 
to know is life eternal. 



20 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 



CHAPTER III. 



The Bible was written among Orientals, and by Ori- 
entals, and for Orientals. We are not Orientals, We 
are people of the West. Moses, though- a Hebrew, was 
a native Egyptian, a child of the palace, the pupil of 
the temple, who had trod the white pavement under 
the shadow of the great pyramid which seemed to Strabo 
as if it had been let down out of heavan, a dazzling 
mountain of white marble. 

The East is imaginative, the West rationalistic ; the 
latter is logical, the former analogical. The Bible, by 
its very birth, is a book of illustrations, which are to be 
taken according to the law of illustration ; but we, with 
our intense logical habit, are prone to take them me- 
chanically and rigidly. If an Oriental says of another 
with whom he has supped, " We have broken bread 
together, we are of one bloody we Occidentals, with our 
literal habit, are ready to ask, "Why, what relation is 
he to you ? " 

Go into the dwelling of a wealthy son of the East, — 
with lowly salaam he says the house is yours, and all 
that it contains, and he is your slave. Should you, how- 
ever, attempt to carry away any of the precious things 
you found there, you would soon discover your mistake. 
His flowery address was simply the customary form of 
saying you are welcome. 

It has sometimes been deemed irreverent to say that 



PAEALLELISM. 21 

the Bible deals in Iryperbole. But take a familiar in- 
stance : " Speak ye comfortably unto Jerusalem, that .... 
her iniquity is pardoned, for she hath received of the 
Lord's hand double for all her sins." x Literally, this 
declares that she has been punished twice for the same 
offense, and then pardoned. If that be not hyperbole, 
what is ? The truth is, that there is hardly an element 
of illustrative diction more common in the Bible than 
hyperbole, or one which will be found to exert a greater 
influence upon interpretation. But there is another ele- 
ment, viz., that of analogy, which is even more common 
and more fundamental, as we shall presently show. 

Now there are two ways in which the Orientalism of 
Scripture may be abused. We may, with our Western 
literalism, treat illustrations like so much cast-iron, with 
cutting edges, and inflexible angles, and interlocking 
teeth, to build a great quartz-crushing, or heart-crushing 
machine withal ; and. then, by a natural reaction, we 
may turn about and abuse the Bible, and arraign Jeho- 
vah as a tyrant : this is one extreme. On the other 
hand, we may say that illustrations illustrate nothing ; 
they are only the play of fancy — a mere way of talking : 
this is the other extreme. According to the latter, there 
is no natural foundation for illustration, no law, no con- 
sistent usage running through all literature, and espe- 
cially through the Bible. Of these extremes it is difficult 
to say which is most injurious. Let both be avoided. 
And let it be borne in mind that there is a principle, or 
law of nature, as real as the attraction of gravit}^ or any 
other natural law, underlying all illustrative diction, — a 
principle in actual use in every-day life, among all peo- 
ple, learned and unlearned, pervading all literature, 
especially the literature of the Orient, — and that is the 
principle of Parallelism. 

1 Isaiah, xl. 2. 



22 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

Listen to the discourse of people everywhere, in the 
cars, the store, the street ; you hear one say to another, 
" Suppose a case," and he makes his statement. The 
other replies, " The cases are not parallel" and in turn 
he tells his little story. Each is trying by his apt illus- 
tration or parable to make the other see the subject of 
controversy as he sees it ; and the principle at the bottom 
of all "parallel cases" is the principle of correspondence 
or analogy. 

Phrenologically speaking, it is the faculty of Compari- 
son which is active in this work ; the power of discrimi- 
nating resemblances in the midst of differences ; the 
power of perceiving the likeness of relations, in connec- 
tion with the unlikeness of things ; the power of select- 
ing objects alike in certain relations, but unlike in others, 
and using one instead of the other, or to illustrate the 
other ; especially material relations, to shadow forth 
spiritual realities. It is not the poet, the scholar, or 
the man of lively imagination alone who possesses this 
power. It is employed more or less by all men, in all 
walks of life ; for convenience as well as for ornament, 
for conciseness as well as for instruction. The merchant 
who reads in his prices-current that feathers are heavy, 
and ashes active, and beans dull, and stocks booming, &c, 
is using the quintessence of metaphor without knowing 
it. So the politician, who talks of the " machine," and 
the " barrell," and similar campaign phrases. Specula- 
tors are bulls and bears, and the market is roughly treated 
between them. Yet nobody thinks it is the diction of 
poetry they are using. The very slang of the mines, the 
strange dialect of the underground population of London 
and Paris, is analogical. The dialect of the business 
world is what it is, because it saves time and type. It 
would take much circumlocution to express didactically 
the idea of " bulling the market," or " making a corner 



PARALLELISM. 23 

in wheat." Men use analogy or correspondence as in- 
stinctively as they keep the line of gravitation within 
the base, in walking, and by as absolute a law. 

No man was ever more practical than Abraham Lin- 
coln, and no man was more fond of a parallel case, or 
more happy in its use. A redundant imagination may 
even be a hindrance. It may adorn rather than illu- 
mine. It may delight in an exuberance of resemblances 
rather than in fine-cut differences. No man was less 
fanciful than Poor Richard, or more apt at illustration 
by analogy. An imagination chastened, and held in 
check b}^ sound common sense, is invaluable. Without 
it, discourse becomes pale and cold, and full of abstrac- 
tions, which have been well described as " the ashes of 
thought." 1 And it is simply because things do exist in 
pairs, because different parts of the material system are 
like other parts in certain points, and the material sys- 
tem throughout, like the mental and moral system, its 
double, its counterpart, that men universally employ the 
method of " parallel case." The law of analogy is as 
truly an objective law of nature as is the law of gravity. 

If the Bible did not use this law, the book might do 
for some other world, or order of beings, but not for 
this. In studying the illustration-method of the Bible, 
therefore, we are studying not a mere play of fancy, not 
mere ornament, not the transient fashion of an age, the 
venial weakness of a people ; we are studying a neces- 
sary law of mind and matter, we are studying the educa- 
tional method of heaven, the alphabet, the diagrams, the 
maps and charts, as it were of the earthly school-room, 
the object-teaching of God. " Types and shadows," 
once very popular, have fallen into discredit with some, 
for want of a clear conception of the objective law of 
analogy, or correspondence on which they are based, and 

i Isaac Taylor. 



24 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

by which they are to be interpreted. But what is a type 
but a ■" parallel case"? Types and emblems are not 
things of the past. Every cartoon, every political cari- 
cature, contains types and emblems. For the last 
twenty years this nation has had no more powerful 
political teacher than Thomas J. Nast, A few strokes 
of that wonderful pencil say more to the common people 
than columns of editorials, however well written. Some 
of his blows at corruption have been terrible as the 
dashing stroke of an iron rod. A complete analysis of 
his cartoons would involve every element of teaching 
by parallelism. There you find the principle of direct 
resemblance by portrait and by costume ; of tryperbole, 
by slightly exaggerated resemblance, or burlesque ; of 
indirect resemblance, bestial, celestial, typical ; of double 
or triple emblems, as, for instance, the conventional Uncle 
Sam, and Columbia in the same picture, representing 
the same nation in two aspects ; and almost every con- 
ceivable blending of the direct and indirect resemblance, 
in complex animal and human forms ; together with the 
remote hint, the absurd exaggeration, the delicate satire, 
the characteristic quotation. One knows no better school 
for the study of the laws of symbolism than might be 
found in a complete annotated edition of the cartoons 
of Nast. 

Types and shadows, then, are not obsolete ; and the 
object-teaching of the Bible is not an anomaly or an- 
achronism. Those rites, and forms, and scenic effects, 
are as eloquent to-day as they were three thousand 
years ago. Those colors never will fade. That pageant 
will never cease to interest and instruct while earth 
stands. One great object of the ritual was to impress 
upon the national mind the conception of God as near 
in space, remote only in character ; as near and friendly 
to them, but far from and hostile to their pride and self- 



PARALLELISM. 25 

ishness. Their King came to live among them. He 
had his tent or tabernacle. He had his throne or mercy- 
seat. He ate with them. They heard his voice. They 
saw the light of his fire. As neighbors see the smoke 
from their neighbors' chimneys, the light through the 
window ; as subjects see the illumination of their prince's 
palace, so it was with them. He kept house among 
them. This taught them a lesson ; it formed a language. 
They spoke of the Lord as walking among them, dwell- 
ing in Israel, placing his name there, and there taking 
his rest, and his delight, and many other phrases, which 
have passed into the dialects of Christendom. 

Thus the idea of local nearness was familiarized to 
them, and it was their chief pride and glory ; " For 
what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh 
unto them, as the Lord our God is in all things that we 
call upon Him for ? " 1 And it was not mere local pres- 
ence, but friendly, loving, protecting presence. . He was 
father, friend, husband, king, everything sacred and dear, 
and they his peculiar treasure, his " first-born," his es- 
poused bride, his wife. 

But while thus coming into these intimate relations, 
it was carefully impressed upon them that he was sepa- 
rate from sin. It would not be right, or wise, or kind, 
to dwell among them in their sins, so as to seem to take 
pleasure in sin. This also was effected by object-teaching, 
through a most ingenious and curious set of signs and 
emblems, such as washings, dresses, feasts, fasts, gifts, 
oblations — the object being to teach them that as their 
King was holy, so they must be holy too. 

Call up the scene, as they lay encamped in the desert, 
covering a space as large as that of a grand army ; the 
twelve tribes forming an immense quadrangle ; the 
tabernacle in the center. Outside of the grand quad- 

1 Deut. iv. 7. 



26 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

rangle was the wilderness, where were wild beasts, and 
robbers, and solitude, and want. Thither, far out from 
the camp, was carried the offal, whatever was vile and 
unclean. There, too, those were sent, for longer or 
shorter time, who had broken the rules of the school, 
and were subject to discipline, all who were ceremo- 
nially unclean. But within the great quadrangle or 
camp, was everything good and attractive. Here the 
several tribes with their tribe standards ; here the tents 
and possessions of private families. Further inward 
was the tribe of Levi ; inside of that, the spacious en- 
closure or court of the tabernacle ; inside of that, the 
tabernacle ; and inside of that again, behind the second 
veil, the throne-room, or " Holy of Holies ; " and there, 
in the ark, beneath that mercy-seat, the Law of Love. 
Now, from the far outside of that camp to that center 
was but a few minutes' walk. Yet see how the idea of 
moral distance, or separation from sin, was suggested. 

Those under censure could not come in among the 
tribes. Those in the tribes must not come in among 
the tents of Levi, or inside the hangings of the court ; 
the Levites might enter the court, but not into the tab- 
ernacle ; the sons of Aaron, or common priests, might 
enter the first, but not the second, apartment; the 
High Priest alone, and that once a year, could enter the 
most holy place, and that with very special and peculiar 
rites of confession and purification. 

Examine, then, the consecration of Aaron. A fire is 
kindled on the brazen altar in the court. Another fire 
is blazing far outside the camp, in the desert. Between 
these extremes the people are assembled on the east of 
the court. They can look either way. Here within is 
the tabernacle, with its veil embroidered with cher- 
ubim. To the font, or brazen laver, Moses leads Aaron, 
in his common, every-day dress. He first unclothes him. 



PARALLELISM. 27 

He next washes him, at the font, from head to foot, and 
clothes him in the sacred robes of office ; trousers of 
white ; variegated sash ; fringed robe of blue ; and over 
all the ephod, embroidered with purple, and blue, and 
scarlet, and woven stiff with threads of gold. On each 
shoulder a large onyx, or cameo, engraved with six tribe- 
names. On his bosom a breastplate with twelve precious 
stones, each containing a tribe-name. Lastly, on his 
head is set a turban of white, with, a golden coronet in 
front, with the inscription, " Holiness to the Lord." 

Such was the image of the consecrated person who, 
out of the many ten thousands of Israel, should alone 
enter that inmost recess. To complete the representa- 
tion, the costly oil is poured upon his head. He is by 
that act set apart as " The Lord's Anointed," the Mes- 
siah, the Christ. For these three words, Messiah, Christ, 
Anointed, are one. 

This is what is meant by Object- Teaching. There 
the people saw a most beautiful representative image of 
him who should be the sinner's friend, " holy, harmless, 
undefiled, yet separate from sinners." 

And now, the scenic representation goes on. A victim 
is slain, and with the blood Aaron and his sons are signed 
on head, and hand, and foot. There is a public confes- 
sion of sin on behalf of priest and people. There is a 
public eating together on the part of the King and his 
people ; he by the fire consuming a part — they feasting 
upon a part — in token of close covenant relation. They 
may say, " We have eaten at his table — we are of one 
blood." Hence, when the service is about to be con- 
cluded, and the victim is piled on the altar, fire from 
heaven falls and kindles the sacrifice. They are ac- 
cepted. The Lord is at home among them. This is his 
pavilion, this his hospitable board ; and since they have 
confessed their sins, and been forgiven, and covenanted 



28 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

to be holy, the Lord can dwell among .them, without 
seeming to sanction wickedness. 

This curious and beautiful system of object-teaching, 
it is the design of this work to show, is found, in its 
main elements, in the Garden of Eden. From it, by 
corruption, came all ethnic rituals ; from it, by re- 
institution, came the Levitical economy, which we may 
describe as the great Reformation of the sixteenth 
century before Christ. 1 

1 To complete the contrast, it should be remembered that while the inmost 
adytum, the holy of holies, was the throne-room of Jehovah, the entire out- 
side world, encompassing the camp, was by implication the dominion of another 
being, Azazel. 



BEFORE THE CURTAIN". 29 



CHAPTER IV. 

BEFORE THE CURTAIN. 

There are three classes of interpreters, the mythical, 
the historic, and the historical-symbolic. (1) The myth- 
ical regard the story of paradise as a pure fiction, or ap- 
ologue, like one of iEsop's fables. It may have a moral, 
or a meaning of some sort, but it had no objective exist- 
ence. (2) The historic consider it as an objective reality, 
invested with no special typical significance. Very few 
of this class, however, are consistent throughout. Almost 
without exception, in the course of exposition, they find 
one trait after another which they unconsciously treat as 
typical. (3) The third class, by far the largest and 
ablest, consider the Garden and all it contained to be 
both a historical objective reality, and, at the same time, 
symbolically significant throughout, just as the Levitical 
system was real, yet emblematic. The author takes his 
stand with writers of this class, and differs from them 
only in seeking to apply more consistently the admitted 
principles of analogy. 

The Garden is a tableau. The whole scene, the actors, 
the action, the dialogue, are a specimen of divine object- 
teaching, from which by corruption all ethnic systems 
have come, from which by reformation the Levitical 
system was derived. 

That there is some hidden significance in the paradi- 
saical scene has been the almost unanimous verdict of 
mankind. The mythical interpreters say there is noth- 



30 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

ing but symbolism. The literal interpreters, ere they 
are aware, say this or that is symbolic. Thus all classes, 
willingly or unwillingly, confess that here is a hidden 
meaning, if we can but find it. Obviously, we are to find 
it, if at all, by studying the description. It is only by 
the description that we know or can judge anything 
about the subject. 

Is this, then, a poem ? Poetical it may be, in a gen- 
eral sense ; stimulative to the imagination, and the basis 
of the best poetry of the ages, —but poetry, in the sense 
of metrical composition, it is not. It is a description in 
prose, not in verse. 

Is, then, the description highly figurative ? That de- 
pends on what definition we give to the term figurative. 
If by " figurative " we mean that there is a symbolic 
meaning in the things described, then the narrative is 
figurative. But if by figurative we mean that the ac- 
count contains many figures of speech, such as simile, 
metaphor, metonymy, hyperbole, &c, then it is not figu- 
rative. As the writer uses the term, the narrative is 
very little figurative, while the objects themselves are 
highly emblematic, or symbolic. The diction, the style, 
is quite plain, and unadorned ; the scene itself and the 
actions are highly significant. 

Let the reader glance over the narrative, 1 keeping in 
mind this distinction between the style or diction, and 
the objects and acts described — he will find in the for- 
mer but few and very simple figures. The simile is one 
of the simplest, most common figures of speech. Are 
there any similes in these two chapters ? The only 
instances are, " Ye shall be as gods;" "Man is become 
as one of us." The word "as" may involve a compar- 
ison. Yet it is a kind of comparison so common in ordi- 

1 Genesis, ch. ii., iii. 



BEFORE THE CURTAIN. 31 

nary speech that it can scarcely be considered as highly 
figurative. 

Next to the simile, the metaphor is the most common 
figure of speech. Are there any metaphors here ? Is 
it a metaphor to say a river " went out of Eden " ? That 
it " became into four heads " ? If such terms are meta- 
phors, they are very mild ones, without which the most 
prosaic and literal style could hardly exist. To " dress " 
a garden, may once have been a figurative expression, 
but it has become so common that all sense of metaphor 
is lost. " They twain shall be one flesh," may possibly 
be considered slightly figurative. So, " Dust shalt thou 
eat," may be regarded as a way of saying, " shalt be de- 
graded," — since serpents do not in fact eat dust. So, 
also, "Cursed is the ground for thy sake," "In the sweat 
of thy face," " Dust thou art," " The eyes of them both 
were opened," may perhaps have a trace of the meta- 
phoric ; but they are such traces as pertain to the most 
matter-of-fact discourse. Let the reader, with this point 
in view, carefully peruse these two chapters. He will 
find, perhaps to his great surprise, that there are almost 
no figures found there. It would be easy to select pas- 
sages of equal length from Gibbon's History of Rome 
that would have ten times as many figures as this, yet 
no one supposes that Gibbon's style is figurative in the 
sense of not being historic. 

Are these chapters, then, a vision ? If they are, the 
narrative does not inform us of the fact. It states that 
Adam was thrown into a deep sleep while Eve was 
a-building. He may have had a vision, as Lightfoot 
remarks, " The whole scene of Eve's creation was pre- 
sented to his imagination in a divinely inspired dream," 
but it is not so stated. If the whole account is a vision, 
we have found it out somewhere else than in the narra- 
tive. It is our inference. It is an idea we put into or 



32 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

upon the language, not an idea we get out of the lan- 
guage. The description is as if the scene were a historic 
reality. The language is simple. The words are plain. 
The style is artless. It is precisely the style any one 
would use in describing a place, and people, and events 
which he had seen or heard of as actually existing. It 
is sometimes imagined that it requires profound knowl- 
edge of the Hebrew language to interpret this passage. 
But the truth is, the language is so simple, so child- 
like, that there is the least possible scope for minute 
exegesis. It requires no more knowledge of Hebrew 
to understand the description, than it does of English to 
read in Webster's spelling-book the little lesson begin- 
ning, " An old man found a rude boy on one of his 
apple-trees." .... The same remark is applicable to 
the Apocalypse ; it is written, as one might almost say, in 
nursery Greek, so far as the style is concerned. The 
burden of meaning is in the objects, after they have been 
despribed. The principle on which the emblems of 
Eden and of the New Jerusalem are to be interpreted 
is one and the same, — a principle whereby grammatical 
exegesis is reduced to a minimum, and analogic compari- 
son raised to a maximum. The importance of this fact 
can scarcely be overestimated. It meets the objection, 
that if God inspired the original, he would inspire the 
translation. That is like saying, if Nature gives us eyes, 
she must provide us microscopes. The Bible is so largely 
pervaded by the method of parallelism, or emblem, that 
the meaning lies less in the letter and more in the object. 
This is especially true of the Paradise document, and of 
the Apocalypse — two extremes of revelation as closely 
related to each other as are the two shells of a bivalve. 

To convey a system of metaphysics, like Kant's Critique 
of Pure Reason, by means of a translation, would be dif- 
ficult. But to describe objects seen in nature, or seen 



BEFOKE THE CURTAIN. 33 

in a dream or vision, requires simple and easily translated 
language. For such passages, the English version is 
practically as good to the common people as the original 
would be. The right of private judgment still exists. 
Scholarship may help, but it cannot much hinder. The 
emblem is there. The symbol stands out. The picture 
is painted. The interpretation brings into play a wholly 
new class of faculties which the common people possess, 
and know how to use as well as the most learned linguist. 

We do not undervalue grammatical and textual criti- 
cism. We merely define its scope and limits. For the 
Greek of Revelation, and the Hebrew of Genesis ii. and 
iii., the linguistic knowledge of the seminary student is 
practically as ample as that of the professor ; and the 
knowledge of English, of a competent Sunday-school 
teacher, very nearly as ample for the same purpose as 
that of either. The reason is, that the symbolic mean- 
ing is not in the words, but in the things, the objects 
described. The language is but a spy-glass, and the 
common sailor can look through a spy-glass as well as 
an optician. All that the language can do for us, is to 
show us that Garden ; its objects ; their actions ; as ob- 
jective realities, causing us to see them with the mind's 
eye as if they were real. There is nothing, a priori, 
more improbable in the existence of such a Garden, 
than in the existence of the Levitical Ceremonial Tab- 
leau. The repugnance some feel to the idea of its ob- 
jective reality, practically amounts to this : " I should 
not think the Lord would do so. I would not if I were 
he." But if any reader cannot help thinking it a vision 
— if he must see it in that light ^— let him bear in mind 
that even then the description is literal, and that the 
seer describes in the plainest, most unfigurative diction 
what he saw, or seemed to see, in said vision. 

Hence the question returns upon us, If there be a 
3 



34 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

hidden significance, how are we to discover it ? — and 
the answer is, The significance is in the objects and ac- 
tions themselves, and not in the diction. (The reader 
will excuse the repetition. It is a thought that needs 
to be repeated over and over again. For the whole 
scheme of revelation largely depends upon it.) We are 
to consider those objects and actions attentively, in all 
their relations, and we are to apply the great law of 
analogy, or parallelism, or correspondence, or object- 
teaching, or whatever other name we choose to give it. 
And that law, although it requires an exercise of the 
imagination, may be stated in a form as rigid, as dry, as 
prosaic as the rule of three. 

The scene, actors, actions, are like a drama on a stage ; 
the description is an opera-glass through which we look. 
To interpret the pantomime, we do not unscrew the 
opera-glass, and look inside of it. We adjust the lenses 
to the right focus, we look through them, and we forget 
them. 

And what is the law of analogy? It is in general this: 
As such a scene, actors and acts, to the natural world, 
so the corresponding realities to the spiritual world — 
a : b : : x : y. In pursuing this method there are some 
topics which must of necessity be waived for the present. 
Such are the divine nature and personality ; the origin 
of evil ; the unity or plurality of the human species ; the 
date of man's appearance on the globe ; and the whole 
range of topics usually included under the term Theodicy. 
There appears on the face of the narrative to have been 
a divine manifestation. Let it be taken at its face, with- 
out speculative inquiry whether it was mediate or im- 
mediate ; — the personal Deity, or some accredited 
representative. Either way it was a real divine mani- 
festation. 

This manifestation is represented as recent, compared 



BEFORE THE CURTAIN. 35 

with the date of certain fossil human remains. Leave 
it so. Leave the Scripture chronology in its present 
state. Admit if you choose the high probability that 
man existed ages before Adam, in the visible and in the 
invisible world. For whether is it easier to believe, that 
man came up from among the apes, or that he came 
down from among the angels ? Admit the possibility of 
races of men, contemporary with Adam, in certain parts 
of the globe ; but do not dogmatize on these points. 
Possibility is not probability. Probability is less than 
certainty. The meaning of the tableau, by the law of 
analogy, must be independent of chronology. Let not 
that interpretation be embarrassed by an irrelevant issue. 

It is, on either chronological hypothesis, a great crisis 
— either the first introduction, or the re-introduction of 
the race. It is the inauguration of a new species, or of 
an improved variety of the species. It is the dawn of hu- 
manity, or of a higher type of humanity. 

It is not the object of these pages to discuss the six 
days' creative work, except merely to state that the 
writer regards the narrative in the first chapter of 
Genesis, as describing the clearing off of clouds and 
vapors and deluge after a volcanic catastrophe, a limited 
district being in six natural days restored to the condi- 
tion in which it was prior to being devastated and de- 
populated. These six days being on a small scale like 
to, or specimens of, six seons of material generation past, 
and typical of six seons of spiritual regeneration future. 
Even this, however, he holds provisionally as that one 
of several possible theories in which his mind can work 
most freely. 

Furthermore, let it be distinctly understood that this 
is not of the nature of a so-called Theodicy. The 
writer does not attempt to solve the problem of the 
Origin of Evil ; he does not attempt, in the language 



36 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

of Milton, " to justify the ways of God to man." Of 
course every true opening of the books, whether of na- 
ture, providence, or redemption, it is believed, will illus- 
trate the divine wisdom and goodness, but the direct 
and avowed object is purely historic. What bo the 

EMBLEMS SAY? 



CURTAIN RISES. 37 



CHAPTER V. 

CURTAIN RISES. 

Before taking up the emblems singly, it is well -to 
inquire, Of what in time and place is the Garden as a 
whole the emblem ? The general answer of course is, 
of heaven. But is it exclusively heaven future, or have 
we enfranchisement to say it may also be heaven past? 

If it be asked where heaven is, no definite answer 
can be given. The little that we know about heaven is 
derived from this primeval paradise, and from its ideali- 
zation as re-exhibited in later visions. Wherever located, 
heaven is that reality in the spirit-world, of which the 
terrestrial paradise was the emblem. Some have located 
it in the center of the earth ; some upon the earth when 
finally perfected ; and some above the earth. But all, 
or nearly all, agree that, be it where it will, heaven is 
the reality, of which the Garden of Eden was the sym- 
bol or t} T pe. 

The devout Israelite spoke of the better land as the 
Gan Helen, or Garden of Eden. Jesus on the cross said 
to the penitent thief, " To-day shalt thou be with me in 
paradise." The Apostle Paul, in referring to certain 
" visions and revelations of the Lord," which had been 
vouchsafed to him, thus speaks : " I knew a man in 
Christ above fourteen years ago (whether in the body, 
I cannot tell ; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell : 
God knoweth), such a one caught up to the third heaven. 
And I knew such a man (whether in the body or out of 



38 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

the body, I cannot tell : God knoweth), how that he 
was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable 
words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter." Now 
whether this refers to two distinct raptures, into two 
distinct localities, or to a single spirit transition to 
paradise in the third heaven, the fact remains that 
" paradise " represents a reality in the spiritual and 
invisible realm. It was a glorious reality. He heard 
things there that were " unspeakable." He could find 
no adequate language to express them. It was not law- 
ful to utter them ; or perhaps it was not possible. The 
laws of our present physical state are such, and the state 
of the public mind such, as to make him despair of the 
attempt to reveal what he saw and heard. Yet, be it 
observed in passing, it left its impress on his whole 
after-life, on his habit of thought, on . his style. When- 
ever he touches upon themes connected with that un- 
seen glory, his mind catches fire, and his style begins 
to sparkle and blaze with intensity of emotion. And 
this constituted him a competent interpreter for all time, 
even for us, of all types and emblems of that celestial 
realm. 

But it is in the closing scenes exhibited to the spir- 
itual eye of " the beloved disciple," that the fullest evi- 
dence is given of the symbolic import of the Garden of 
Eden. " He that hath an ear let him hear what the 
Spirit saith. To him that overcometh will I give to 
eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the para- 
dise of God." The object-teaching of the Garden of 
Eden, and of the Levitical Tabernacle, and of the Holy 
City and temple, combine in the grand finale of redemp- 
tion. But the most vivid imagery is borrowed from the 
former, especially the description of the river of the 
water of life, and the tree of life on the banks, and the 
marriage supper of the Lamb. 



CURTAIN RISES. 39 

The idea of a possible reference of the Eden emblems 
to heaven past, may at first mention seem repellent to* 
some readers. The author must request them to admit 
the conception hypothetically, although it may seem like 
an exotic under this meridian and in this age. But there 
are latitudes and meridians under which such a concep- 
tion is not exotic. And those regions contain the vast 
majority of mankind ; and in those regions the Bible 
was written by men to whom such a conception was not 
at all repellent. The Egyptians believed in the pre- 
existence of souls ; Moses was born and bred in Egypt, 
and learned in all the wisdom of that land. The Phari- 
sees believed in pre-existence, and Paul was a Pharisee 
of the Pharisees. There is a fair presumption that both 
Moses and Paul believed in pre-existence ; and the bur- 
den of proof rests on those who assert that they did not 
share the opinions of their day and of their class. Hence, 
even though the reader may not accept it as a demon- 
strable truth, he may tolerate it as a possible theory. 
This will give a certain freedom in looking at the Eden 
Tableau. 

Reflect upon that wonderful group of emblems in the 
Garden, if you concede, as the best recent expositors 
seem to do, that they are emblems ; reflect upon their 
combination, their relations, their contrasts. Think of 
those two trees, so prominent, so central, so fair, yet so 
antithetic. They may eat of one, but not of both. If 
they choose the wrong one, they must be driven out 
from the other. Yet both trees are rooted in the same 
soil, wave in the same air, are gladdened by the same 
sunbeams. 

There, too, is the serpent, with a certain superiority 
over other animals, and his agency in effecting the ex- 
pulsion of man. Can all this have exclusive relevancy 
to scenes in a future heaven ? Can they be interpreted 



40 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

by an excess of literalism, of these present realities ? 
Would not that be virtually to abandon the ground of a 
symbolic character ? Would it not be inconsistent ? 
Would it not introduce much confusion into our results? 
Is it an unwarrantable liberty if we turn our eyes toward 
possible ages in past duration ? Science has familiarized 
the modern mind with the conception of great periods in 
the history of the material system. But is not mind 
nobler than matter ? May not the spiritual universe be 
vaster and more ancient than the physical ? May there 
not be cycles in what might be termed the moral geology 
of the universe ? It is sometimes thought that these 
discoveries of modern science are antagonistic to a rev- 
erent biblical faith. Yet in this very matter the Bible 
is found to have been beforehand with science. A late 
writer, 1 speaking of the words olam and oeon, so often 
used in the Bible, says : " These terms show that there 
existed in the earliest use of language a conception of 
durations transcending any of the ordinary divisions of 
time as measured by the heavenly phenomena. The 
manner in which they are often employed suggests the 
idea of immense ages in the past as well as in the future, 
and that, too, not as mere blank conceptions of the mind, 
but as being as much a part of God's eternal kingdom as 
our own secular period or world duration. Hence the 
present world, too, is called an olam or ceon, regarded as 
one of the series among these mighty epochs." 

But is it merely the material universe whose history ex- 
tends through these seons of the past? Or is it what one 
might venture to characterize the political history of the 
intelligent and spiritual empire ? The wing of material 
science is strong, but that of spiritual science is stronger. 
The boldest outlook of material science is easily out- 
stripped by the soaring flight of the seer's customary 

1 Taylor Lewis, Six Days of Creation, p. 8. 



CUHTAIN RISES. 41 

thought: " Before the foundation of the world." Spir- 
itual science, which is spiritual sight, familiarly employs 
this phrase, and others of similar scope, not merely in 
respect to material evolution, but in reference to that 
which is higher, nobler far, — the evolution of conscious 
intelligent beings, social organizations, thrones, domin- 
ions, princedoms, virtues, powers ! 

Says the writer already quoted: "And then, too, may 
we not soberly ask, Is there not something of this sort 
laboring, as it were, for utterance in many parts of the 
Bible, and especially in the remarkable words, and the 
still more remarkable reduplications of them we have 
been considering ? Is it easy to avoid the thought, that 
in these swelling climaxes of ' ages and ages of ages,' 
ever ascending upward toward the infinite, the writers 
were travailing with an idea, which, although not defi- 
nitely clear, and not definitely rilled up with either a real 
or a mythical history, did, nevertheless, represent to 
their minds actual ante-terrene and ante-adamic periods, 
occupied, in some way, with God's works, both spiritual 
and natural ? " 1 

These questions possess to us a profound significance, 
a fullness of meaning deeper perhaps than the writer 
himself intended. We cannot divest ourselves of the 
impression that that sublime history of ante-adamic ages 
in the spiritual world was a reality, and that it was in 
part the history of this very race that now exists, a 
stranger and a pilgrim here on earth. Such is, to us, 
the habitual attitude of the apostle's mind. Does he 
meditate on the privileges of believers, his next reflec- 
tion is that such favors are " according as he has chosen 
us in Christ before the foundation of the world." Does 
this seem mysterious ? He admits unhesitatingly that 
" from the beginning of the world it hath been hid in 

1 Six Days of Creation, p. 384. The italics are ours. 



42 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

God." Now, however, in his time, he intimates that 
long-guarded mystery has reached its hour of disclosure 
when " the manifold wisdom of God is to be made known 
to principalities and powers in heaven." 

So familiarly to new-born babes, converts from the 
" mysteries " of ethnic hierophants, does the apostle 
talk. He lives on those Alpine heights which we only 
visit by way of summer excursion. To him the air is 
bracing and ambrosial of those heavenly places in Christ 
Jesus, which to effeminate lungs seems rare and difficult 
of respiration. The modern mind is indeed familiar with 
great periods of past material duration. The great an- 
tiquity of the globe ceases to be astonishing. It is the 
association of remote material epochs with an antecedent 
plan purety spiritual, that excites the feeling of incre- 
dulity with manjr. Yet u through faith we understand 
that the ages were constituted by the Word of God, so 
that visible things were formed from things invisible." 
That is the true doctrine of evolution, and it is the 
utterance of a mind quite in the habit of meditations 
such as have been indicated. The invisible universe of 
spirit-world is first, and out of it the whole material 
universe has been evolved by the Divine Word. 

Does Paul wish to strengthen a disciple under afflic- 
tion, which way does his mind take wing ? Not merely 
forward to the immortality beyond, but backward to 
that divine " purpose and grace which was given us in 
Christ Jesus before the world began." (ago xqovwv aiaviuv.') 

Look at the opening of his correspondence with one 
of his pupils ; see what are the commonplaces of his 
mind, his habitual trains of association. Does he speak 
of the hope of eternal life, thus flashing forth to the 
glorious future ? Yes ; but in the same breath he flashes 
back also, for it is " a hope of eternal life which God 
promised before the world began." (n§6 %q6vcov aiwviwv.) 



CUETAIN RISES. 43 

This habit of mind is not peculiar to the apostles. It 
is plain enough where they* learned it, even from the 
lips of Jesus. Does he find no welcome for his teach- 
ings in the uncongenial public mind of the time — is he 
obliged io startle the dull ear of Israel with what they 
deem novelties ? — he consoles himself that so it was 
written of him : " I will open my mouth in parables, I 
will utter things kept secret from the foundation of the 
world." Does he portray the glories of the future ? 
Precisely there is met this sudden recurrence to the re- 
mote past : " Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the 
kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the 
world." 

Does he predict the doom of man's enemy, the de- 
struction of the destroyer. He speaks of "an seonian fire 
prepared for the slanderer and his angels," and prepared, 
as we instinctively feel, from the same ante-mundane 
date. It is the denouement of a race-conflict of ages, and 
the fire is the fire of a holy public sentiment, gentle, lov- 
ing, just, and true towards that which is proud, false, 
and cruel. 

Nor was this merely an element of Christ's method as 
a teacher. It was the habit of his private meditation, 
of his private devotion, as betrayed in the prayer just 
before his death, " Father, I will that they be with me 
that they may behold my glory which thou hast given 
me, for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the 
world." In a single short sentence all earth's history is 
condensed into a brief episode between two eternities, 
— a digression from the normal course of empire. All 
earth's history was but a break in that higher course of 
spiritual development that was rolling on in full volume 
before the world began, and shall roll on again when 
the world shall have passed away. Everywhere to his 
thoughts, the glory that is to be, seems but a reinstate- 



44 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

rnent of the glory which was, before the foundations of 
earth were laid. The truly meditative and spiritual 
mind, in sympathy with Jesus and his apostles, can 
hardly fail to be impressed with the truth that there is 
a sublime plan, more or less fully revealed, embracing in 
its scope, not merely this world and all its affairs, but 
a series of ages "(utw^eg) preceding and to follow. If 
the grand outlines of that plan were hid from the be- 
ginning, they were hid as antitypes are always hid in 
types ; realities in signs and emblems. It was given to 
the apostles to make all men see what had been so 
hidden, by lifting the rent veil from the cherubic ady- 
tum. And the time is approaching when a yet fuller 
manifestation of that all-comprehending plan, not only 
in its general outlines, but in its details, will be vouch- 
safed. 

But to this end there must be mental enlargement. 
The mind must break loose from provincial and conven- 
tional trammels ; must rise to celestial altitudes ; must 
range freely, forward and backward at will, through 
cycles of ages, under the guidance of the Spirit. And 
if this be found difficult, if there be anything of effem- 
inacy, or of paralysis,, in modern habit, then the more 
need to bow the knee in constant prayer that God 
would grant us " to be strengthened with might, by his 
Spirit, in the inner man," . . . . " that we may be able 
to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and 
length, and depth, and height, and to know the love of 
Christ which passeth knowledge, that we may be filled 
with all the fullness of God." 



TEEE OF LIFE. 45 



CHAPTER VI. 

TEEE OF LIFE. 

In studying the emblems of the Garden separately, we 
begin with the Tree of Life as affording the simplest ex- 
emplification of our method. We first ask what kind of 
a tree was it on the natural plane, or what would it be 
now if actually existing ? We then inquire of what is 
such a tree the emblem by the law of analogy ? 

To answer the first question, we turn to the descrip- 
tion. It is described as the " tree of life," growing " in 
the midst of the garden," to partake of which was to 
" live for ever." The word " life " is plural in Hebrew, 
as in the expressions " breath of life," " land of the liv- 
ing." Ezekiel describes a similar tree seen in vision, 
" whose leaf shall not fade, and the fruit shall be for food 
and the leaf for medicine." John also sees substantially 
the same — " the tree of life which bare twelve manner 
of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month, and the 
leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations." 
We have, then, a tree supplying both food and medicine 
in such perfection, that, so long as partaken of, perfect 
health would be enjoyed. 

" And there is nothing improbable," says Archbishop 
Whately, " in the supposition that this fruit was endued 
with the virtue of fortifying the constitution, by being 
applied from time to time, against the decays of age, in 
the same manner as ordinary food from day to day sup- 
ports us against death and famine, or as in some persons 



46 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

the habitual use of certain medicines is found to keep off 
some particular disease." 1 Some may deny that there 
ever was such a tree ; so much the more is it incumbent 
on them to account for this word-picture — that is, to 
show what it shadows forth by analogy. Others say 
such a tree not only existed, but is to exist again here 
on earth. That, however, does not relieve them of the 
duty of showing its analogic significance. On any hy- 
pothesis, that question has to be answered. 

Now it is a striking fact that both in common lan- 
guage and throughout Scripture, eating is made the em- 
blem of believing. Truth has an effect on the mental 
and moral powers, like that of food on the body. Error 
has an effect like that of poison. Every faculty desires 
those truths proper to it, as the body craves food. The 
perceptive faculties crave truths of number, size, color, 
weight, time, tune, &c. The reflective faculties hunger 
for relations of cause and effect, analogy, &c. The ethi- 
cal, esthetic, and emotive faculties desire truths of mor- 
als, of beauty, of affection, and sentiment. Particular 
powers are strengthened aud made beautiful by the 
truths proper to them ; the whole mind is vitalized, 
made symmetrical and happy, by truths suited to the 
whole range of its faculties, and opposite results flow 
from ignorance, or from the belief of error. This is a 
natural law of mind as really as dependence on food is a 
law of body. And this correlation of mind and body by 
which eating is the necessary emblem of believing, is 
also a law of nature ; a law of matter, because it relates 
to the body ; a law of mind, because it includes mind ; 
an objective law of nature, because antecedent to and 
independent of human volition. 

Human language obeys this law intuitively. The 
musician has a taste for music. The critic is a man of 

1 So also Knapp, Fairbairn, and others. 



TREE OF LIFE. 47 

taste. The press caters for the public appetite. What 
the people want is "pabulum." What they get is some- 
times "garbage." There is a healthy literature, and 
there is a literature which, like cheap confectionery, is 
deadly as it is bright and sweet. False sentiment is 
like alcohol. Intemperate consumers of flash publica- 
tions are moral drunkards. The diet of politicians 
would seem to be singularly morbific. It is agreed that 
the diet of the other side makes them crazy. The food 
of your antagonist is that of a cannibal, or a ghoul. It 
is needless to multiply illustrations. Men obey this law 
of analogy as unconsciously as they obey the law of 
equilibrium in walking. The mind acts automatically. 
To speak and think in violation of this law, by act of 
will, is impracticable. Try it. Speak of faith in vir- 
tuous principles as poisonous, and of lies, slanders, and 
obscenities as milk for babes. You can not. Nature is 
against it. You can no more do it than you can fly. 

Now if the writers of the Bible make eating the sym- 
bol of believing, they merely obey this law, to violate 
which would require a miracle. In obeying it, however, 
their usage exhibits a precision, a constancy, and minute- 
ness of elaboration which may properly be termed scien- 
tific. And it is Moses, the author of the Eden narrative, 
who strikes the key-note. Reviewing the way in which 
the Lord had led Israel through the desert, he bids them 
remember how " he humbled thee, and suffered thee to 
hunger, and fed thee with manna, that he might make 
thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by 
every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord 
doth man live." It is more than a casual coincidence 
that when tempted in the wilderness to change stones to 
bread, Christ replied by quoting this passage. It shows 
that here is a great pivot principle ; fundamental to char- 
acter ; fundamental to mental and moral science ; funda- 



48 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

mental to the history of the universe. The hunger of 
the body is a great and imperious feeling; but the hunger 
of the spirit is greater, at times causing the other to be 
forgotten. Thus, at a certain time, Jesus said to his 
disciples, urging him to eat, " I have meat to eat that 
ye know not of. My meat and my drink is to do the 
will of him that sent me." 

But ideas do not exist in the abstract any more than 
wheat grows in the abstract without a stalk, or fruit 
without a tree, or grapes without a vine. Abstractions 
are " the ashes of thought," and souls cannot feed on 
ashes. To believe in teachings is to believe in a teacher, 
just as eating of fruit is eating of the tree. Hence teach- 
ers are called pastors, feeders. They are also compared 
to trees. 

" Beware of false prophets," said Jesus ; that is, false 
teachers and leaders. " Ye shall Ifnow them by their 
fruits." See how naturally he brings in this imagery of 
a tree to denote a person. " Do men gather grapes of 
thorns, or figs of thistles ? Even so every good tree 
bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth 
forth evil fruit." 

Of course, then, as he himself was the great teacher, 
(as he says) " to this end was I born, and for this cause 
came I into the world, that I should testify unto the 
truth," it would be natural that this imagery should 
apply itself to him. Accordingly, alluding to the manna, 
he says, " I am the bread of heaven." And since the 
truths he uttered were so vital to himself, and their 
belief was more than a cold speculative assent, he car- 
ries the imagery still further, to believe his testimony 
was like eating him. " As I live by the Father, so he 
that eateth me, even he shall live by me." It is as if he 
said, "I will be a tree of life to him." 

Still more emphatically, he says, " Whoso eateth my 



TREE OF LIFE. 49 

flesh and drinketh my blood hath eternal life ; " but when 
some of his hearers murmured at this, he said, " The 
words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they 
are life — the flesh profiteth nothing." Those words 
cost him dear ; the expression of such ideas and emo- 
tions in such a world, embodied as they were too in his 
whole life and action, occasioned his death ; every word, 
then, emblematically, was like a morsel of his living 
flesh — a drop of his heart's blood. Those words come 
to us incarnadine. 

Hence the emblematic act of eating bread and drink- 
ing wine was selected by him as a simple memorial, 
" Do this in remembrance of me." Some Christians 
think that the act of eating here implies more than 
faith. All Christians believe that it implies no less. 
Every disciple through the ages, the world over, who 
observes that simple rite, expresses at least his heartfelt 
belief of the teachings, life, sufferings, death, resurrec- 
tion, and exaltation of Jesus. 

Some theorize in one way and some in another about 
his person and work ; but what all Christians agree in, 
is, that his mind as a whole was and is healthful, sana- 
tive, vital in all its influence, of thought, emotion, and 
volition, and so truly in this respect like that of God, 
that only by communion with him can we regain and 
retain health. He could say, "I am the Truth." He 
could say, "lam the true Vine" which is substantially 
like saying, I am the reality of which the tree of life was 
the emblem. To realize vividly the facts in his career, 
to receive his thoughts, to sympathize with his feelings, 
to incorporate them, as it were, in the substance of our 
spiritual being, so that we, in however faint degree, live 
the life he lived, and consent to suffer as he suffered, for 
him and for those dear to him, to be filled with his spirit, 
— this is the great central reality of Christian experience, 
4 



50 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

which can be expressed in no way more perfectly than 
by saying Jesus is to us the tree of life. Accordingly, 
when he would picture to us the fullness of heavenly 
communion with himself, he says, " To him that over- 
cometh will I give to eat of the tree of life that is in the 
midst of the paradise of God." But as this tree of life 
stands contrasted with another tree, — as it is exhibited 
to us at a time prior to the prohibition, and prior to the 
formation of Eve, — its reference cannot be entirely 
future. If the tree of life in Revelation denote Christ 
in heaven future, the tree of life in Genesis denotes 
Christ in heaven past. " For the bread of God is He 
which cometh down from Heaven and giveth life unto 
the world." 



TREE OF KNOWLEDGE. 51 



CHAPTER VII. 

TEEE OF KNOWLEDGE. 

In studying the tree of knowledge, the same method 
is to be adopted as in studying the tree of life. First 
we ask what sort of a tree was it, or would it be if 
actually existing on the natural plane ? And, secondly, 
of what is it the analogic emblem, or symbol ? The de- 
scription informs us that it grew " in the midst of the 
garden," that it appeared " good for food," and " pleas- 
ant to the eyes," and that the effect of eating was that 
" the eyes of them both were opened," and they " be- 
came as one of us (Eloliim) to know good and evil." 
Obviously, an effect is here indicated upon the organs 
of knowledge, viz., the cerebral organs. All food nour- 
ishes the brain more or less, but some kinds of food stim- 
ulate it more directly than others. If the tree of life is 
described as acting beneficently upon the vital organs 
generally, this is represented as acting specially on the 
brain. The statement, " the eyes of them both were 
opened," presents one of the few instances of figurative 
language in the narrative. It cannot be literal, because 
the act of outward vision has just been described ; " the 
woman saw the tree." It was therefore a mental effect 
produced by the fruit. Now the stimulus of the brain 
is not in itself evil, and yet it is implied to be undesir- 
able in some respects in this case. The two trees stand 
in contrast. One is allowed, the other forbidden. They. 
can eat of either, but not of both. The latter, it is 



52 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

proved, tends to death, not directly, but by occasioning 
disuse of the former. The stimulus of the brain, then, 
here indicated, we infer to be bad quantitatively, and not 
qualitatively. It is bad in time, and degree, and manner. 

The order of nature is, that the perceptive faculties 
unfold first, the reflective later. There is also a certain 
order in the development of the emotive faculties. Chil- 
dren, indeed, reflect, compare, trace causation, but they 
perceive facts, objects, relations, far more. The greater 
part of their cerebral activity is in this direction. When 
this is reversed, and the main volume of energy is made 
to flow through the reflective powers, we say the child 
"has an old head on young shoulders." Such precocious 
development is felt to be undesirable. The wise physi- 
cian checks parental fondness from forcing such a hot- 
house growth, lest it be morbid. A tree, then, is described 
which would produce some such premature development 
— reversing the healthy natural sequence of the reflec- 
tive upon the perceptive cerebral organs. 

Such a stimulating property would be no more strange, 
in actual life, than that actually possessed by certain 
well-known substances, such as opium, alcohol, hasheesh, 
and the like. 

It is stated that bees provide a peculiar species of food 
for the larvaB of the royal cells. The experiment has 
been made of removing these cells and their occupants 
entirety, to see what means the bees would take to per- 
petuate the ro}^al line. It was found that new royal 
cells were constructed, and the larvse of the young work- 
ing bee or neuter placed therein, and fed with that pe- 
culiar food. The effect was to develop powers which 
would otherwise have remained dormant, transforming 
neuters into queen bees. So the fruit in question is de- 
scribed as giving a sudden maturity to those organs of 
the brain which would have ripened later. 



TREE OF KNOWLEDGE. 53 

To " know good and evil," according to the uniform 
usage of Scripture, denotes judgment, discrimination of 
differences, such as pertains to maturity. u Your little 
ones which ye said should be for a prey — and your chil- 
dren which in that day had no knowledge of good and evil, 
they shall go in." 1 Here we have the Mosaic use ; all 
under twenty, i. e., all minors, are described as not hav- 
ing this knowledge of good and evil. It is in this way 
that greater or less degrees of maturity are indicated. 
" Before the child shall know to refuse the evil and 
choose the good ; " 2 or " to cry, My father and my 
mother," 3 i. e., to tell them apart ; denoting infancy. 
So, " Nineveh, that great city in which are six-score 
thousand persons that cannot discern between their 
right hand and their left." 4 So with second childhood. 
" Can I," says Barzillai to David, " this day discern be- 
tween good and evil ? Can I taste what I eat or drink, 
or hear any more the voice of singing men or singing 
women? I am this day fourscore years old." 5 In a 
leader or ruler, this power of discrimination is similarly 
described. Moses, in appointing Joshua, says, " I am a 
hundred and twenty years old. I can no more go out 
and come in." 6 " As an angel of God is my Lord the 
king, to discern both good and bad," 7 says the wise 
woman of Tekoa to David. Notice also that it is an 
attribute not only of kings, but of Elohim, or of the 
angels of Elohim. "O Lord," cries Solomon, "I am but 
a little child, I know not how to go out nor come in, ... . 
give therefore thy servant an understanding heart, .... 
that I may judge between good and evil." 8 Evidently, 
to know good and evil, is to judge between good and 
evil. The office of a king or judge, in the administra- 
tion of justice, involves the nice balancing of opposites, 

i Deut. i. 39. 3 Isaiah viii. 4. 5 2 Samuel xix. 35. 7 1 Kings iii. 7, 9. 

2 Isaiah vii. 16. 4 Jonah iv. 11. 6 Deut. xxxi. 2. si Kings iii. 7, 8. 



54 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

-the keen discernment of differences, the delicate insight 
into conflicting motives, the estimate of probabilities, 
the sifting of testimony, the weighing of evidence, and a 
final judgment. Obviously, in a world where good and 
evil, truth and error, right and wrong, both in act and in 
motive, are so mixed, this is the most difficult function 
to which the mind can be summoned — a function to 
which, on the great scale, the mind of Omniscience alone 
is fully competent. So in spiritual matters. " Every 
one that useth milk .... is a babe ; but strong meat 
belongeth to them who are of full age, even those who 
b} r reason of use have their intellectual faculties disci- 
plined to discern good and evil." * 

This induction of all the cases where the phrase 
" know good and evil," or its equivalent, is met with in 
the Bible, suffices to show what was the established use. 
Returning, then, to Genesis, and applying this usage, we 
find it consistent with the facts stated. We see a tree 
whose fruit affects the brain, so as to confer a precocious 
maturity. They came of age suddenly. Their conduct 
showed it. The Lord acknowledged it. " Man is be- 
come as one of us, to know good and evil." 

Of what, then, is such a tree by analogy the represen- 
tation or emblem ? We reply, as in the tree of life, that 
eating is the emblem of believing, and the tree is an 
emblem, not of abstractions, but of a person. The two 
contrasted trees are emblems of two contrasted persons, 
contemporaries, on one and the same celestial plane of 
being. If that can be heaven future, let it be so. If it 
cannot, then let it be heaven past. There is shadowed 
forth as existing in heaven at some period of past dura- 
tion, a being whose ideas, emotions, and general influence 
tended to produce precocious maturity in those under 
his influence. 

1 Hebrews v. 12-14. 



TREE OF KNOWLEDGE. 55 

As, however, it is probable that the conventional habit 
of regarding this tree as no emblem at all, or as an em- 
blem of abstractions, may be the most difficult to over- 
come, the writer craves the patience of the reader, while 
he exhibits one or two more illustrations of ancient usage 
on this point. Simply for the sake of showing the ease 
and naturalness with which a tree is used as the emblem 
of a prince, ruler, or judge, take the well-known apologue 
of Jotham : " The trees went forth on a time to anoint a 
king over them ; and they said unto the olive-tree, Reign 
thou over us. But the olive-tree said unto them, Should 
I leave my fatness, wherewith by me they honor God 
and man, and go to be promoted over the trees ? And 
the trees said to the fig-tree, Come thou, and reign over 
us. But the fig-tree said unto them, Should I forsake 
my sweetness, and my good fruit, and go to be promoted 
over the trees ? Then said the trees unto the vine, 
Come thou, and reign over us. And the vine said unto 
them, Should I leave my wine which cheereth God and 
man, and go to be promoted over the trees ? Then said 
all the trees unto the bramble, Come thou, and reign 
over us ? And the bramble said unto the trees, If in 
truth ye anoint me king over you, then come and put 
your trust in my shadow : and if not, let fire come out 
of the bramble, and devour the cedars of Lebanon." * 

Take also the significant dream of Nebuchadnezzar : 
" I saw a tree, and the height thereof was great ; the 
tree grew, and it was strong, and the height thereof 
reached unto heaven, and the sight thereof to all the 
ends of the earth ; — the leaves thereof were fair, and 
the fruit thereof much, and in it was meat for all ; the 
beasts of the field had shadow under it, and the fowls 
of heaven dwelt in the branches thereof, and all flesh 
was fed of it. And a watcher, and an holy one came 

1 Judges ix. 8-15. 



56 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

down from heaven ; — he cried aloud, and said thus, 
Hew down the tree and cut off his branches, shake off 
his leaves and scatter his fruit, let the beasts get away 
from under it and the fowls from his branches." .... 
And Daniel said, "It is thou, O king." 1 

The same image is employed to describe the king of 
Assyria and his downfall : "Behold, the Assyrian was a 
cedar in Lebanon with fair branches, and with a shadow- 
ing shroud, and of a high stature ; and his top was among 
the thick boughs. The waters made him great, the deep 

set him up on high with her rivers Therefore 

his height was exalted above all the trees of the field, 
and his boughs were multiplied, and his branches became 
long because of the multitude of waters, when he shot 
forth ; — all the fowls of heaven made their nests in his 
boughs, and under his branches did all the beasts of the 
field bring forth their young, and under his shadow 
dwelt all great nations. Thus was he fair in his great- 
ness in the length of his branches : for his root was by 
great waters. The cedars in the garden of God could 
not hide him : the fir-trees were not like his boughs, and 
the chestnut-trees were not like his branches ; not an}*- 
tree in the garden of God was like unto him in his 
beauty. I have made him fair by the multitude of his 
branches, so that all the trees of Eden that were in the 
garden of God envied him." 2 

These passages show what the ancient usage was. Do 
they not also suggest that the prophets regarded the 
trees of Eden, especially the two central ones, in the 
light we have endeavored to indicate ? And do we not 
gain a new conception of the profound depth of mean- 
ing in Christ's generalization of all prophetic symbolism 
in the concise form, — " A good tree cannot bring forth 
evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good 

1 Daniel iv. 2 Ezek. xxxi. 3-18. 



TREE OF KNOWLEDGE. 57 

fruit. By their fruits ye shall know them. Every tree 
that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and 
cast into the fire." He is not speaking of abstrac- 
tions. He is speaking of men, of teachers, of leaders, 
and rulers. 

Accept, then, the result thus far obtained. The tree 
of knowledge is not the emblem of an abstraction, or 
system of abstractions. It denotes an intelligent being, 
a prince, ruler, judge, teacher. It denotes a being, the 
influence of whose ideas and principles and emotions 
upon those who received them into their minds was like 
that of such a tree as is described upon the body — 
especially the cerebral organs. We are not brought 
face to face with the question of the origin of evil. 
We are simply introduced into the celestial world, at 
some former period when development has reached a 
certain advanced stage. We behold there a leading 
intelligence outwardly fair, at whose root no axe is yet 
laid, whose fruit, that is his ideas, teachings, precepts, 
judgments, are apparently wise and reliable ; but yet, 
the parties exposed to his influence are cautioned 
against him ; they are warned not to believe his teach- 
ings, imbibe his principles, or yield to his influence. 
They are given to understand that the effect of so doing 
would be highly injurious, even fatal to their spiritual 
life. 

We can conceive that it had taken long periods of 
time to bring about such a crisis as that. The drama 
opens at that crisis. It shows us a wide and mighty 
empire, under a splendid and glorious monarch, at a 
critical moment. We behold in that ancient celestial 
world two great princes standing side by side, both in 
outward appearance attractive and admirable, yet sus- 
taining such relations to each other of inward spirit and 



58 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

character, that it was impossible for inferiors to serve 
both, or be receptive of the ideas and sympathies of 
both. If they were in communion with the one they 
could not confide in the other ; and if they imbibed the 
principles of the latter, they would be debarred from 
intercourse with the former. Yet it seems to be shad- 
owed forth by the emblem that the one was apparently 
as worthy of confidence as the other. The tree ap- 
peared to the woman " good for food." The being in 
question was, so far as creature eyes could see, in every 
wa} r " to be desired " as a ruler, teacher, educator, whose 
office it was to judge of right and wrong, true and false, 
and train younger minds to do the same. 

Just as vividly as the great tree described by Ezekiel 
images to our view the splendor of the Assyrian mon- 
arch, does this tree reveal the splendor of that primeval, 
celestial prince " who was perfect in his ways from the 
day that he was created " until now when " his heart is 
lifted up because of his beauty, and he has corrupted 
his wisdom by reason of his brightness." 1 Further- 
more he is exhibited 'to our view as a prince native to 
the soil, and no usurper. The tree of knowledge grew 
in the soil of Eden as naturally as did the tree of life, 
and struck his roots as deep ; was watered by the same 
streams, and waved fair and free in the same sunshine, 
and " all the trees in the garden of God envied him." 
So the prince, in whom celestial empire began, who was 
the young morning star of that far-distant horizon, was 
native to that empyreal clime, and to all creature-ken 
still nourished with the water of life, and bright with 
the reflected glory of God. And the intimation is, that 
the things he said were in themselves apparently true ; 
and the motives he appealed to not essentially evil, but 

1 Ezek. xxviii. 12, 19. 



TKEE OF KNOWLEDGE. 59 

good ; and that his influence was undesirable indirectly, 
by excessive or premature stimulus of certain elements 
of intellectual and moral character in those subjected 
to his sway, exciting in them a too early thirst for power, 
and impelling them, instead of submitting to the needed 
ordeal of patience, to grasp at untimely dominion. 



60 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE FIRST ADAM. 

" The Lord God formed man of the dust of the 
ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, 
and man became a living soul." It will probably be 
conceded that this merely describes the formation and 
animation of the body. He formed the body, caused it 
to breathe, and man became a living animal. Birds, 
beasts, and reptiles are spoken of as having souls, the 
same word, nephesh, or psyche, being employed. Such 
is the fact described on the natural plane. He is taken 
at that point, and placed in the garden, having been 
formed outside of it, though in the Eden precinct. He 
is placed in the garden to dress, and to keep, that is, to 
guard it ; the same word being used ' as subsequently 
applied to the blazing sword stationed " to keep" the 
way of the tree of life. It is not, then, the savage that 
is ushered on the stage; it is not the hunter, the nomad, 
the Nimrod : it is the husbandman, the gardener, with 
a slight hint of the warrior or sentinel. 

A yet more remarkable feature of the description is 
that he is alone. " The Lord God said, It is not good 
that man should be alone." There was one thing, then, 
in the first Adam's condition, even in Paradise, which 
the Lord himself declared was not good. Each animal 
had his mate or companion ; man, the head of all, was 
solitary. Each inferior species was able to propagate 
itself. Man, invested with dominion, destined to sub- 
due all, could not increase and multiply. 



THE FIRST ADAM. 61 

There is still another fact stated of the first Adam, 
namely, that he was formed " in the image of God." 
This may mean, as some have thought, that the divine 
Sculptor appeared upon the stage in human shape and 
formed Adam, the precise image or fac-simile of him- 
self. Or it may mean that he made him by analogy 
like God, by resemblance of relations. It may mean 
both. He was, in some relations, like God, as woman 
was not. " Forasmuch as Tie is the image and glory of 
God, but the woman is the glory of the man." " In the 
image of God made he Mm ; male and female made he 
them." 

There is one more fact in regard to this leading figure 
in the tableau, viz. : that there are two Adams. The 
first Adam is single, the second Adam double (for he 
called their name Adam), and it is important to observe 
that it is to this first Adam, or Adam in this state of in- 
completeness, that the animals are brought, that he may 
give them names. This, viewed on the natural plane 
and apart from any symbolic reference, is an act of 
ownership. A man names his own children. A shep- 
herd gives names to his sheep. To change a person's 
name is the act of the legislature or sovereign. This 
naming of the animals is equivalent, on the natural 
plane, to an exercise of sovereignty. Yet the sovereign 
owner of all lower orders is himself in a solitude which 
is not good. 

Consider for a moment the startling accentuation of 
this feature of the drama, or scenic representation, hi 
the successive scenes of a tragedy, an actor may be 
obliged to represent very different parts, and he must 
be made up or dressed for those parts. So in the drama 
of Eden. If we are to interpret, we must notice every- 
thing characteristic, especially in the leading figures. 
But in all the tableaux, pantomimes, or dramas that ever 



62 . THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

were set on the stage, never was anything half so strik- 
ing imagined as the two contrasted acts or scenes of the 
leading character Adam; the first Adam and the second, 
the old Adam and the new, the Adam in a condition 
that was not good, and the Adam in a condition that 
was very good. 

We read of Oriental jugglers, with sharp swords, 
cutting one of the performers in pieces, and causing him 
to appear again, whole and sound, before the amazed 
spectators ; but suppose, having cut him in pieces, they 
brought him out with a young and blooming bride ? 

Yet such is the symbolization here. The chief actor 
is thrown into a death-like sleep. His body is divided, 
it matters little into how many fragments (so far as 
symbolization is concerned, two are as good as twenty). 
His body is mutilated, divided. The parts are joined 
together, and he rises, a complex unity, a double whole, 
a happy pair! Surely, if there is meaning anywhere, 
it is here. Of what, then, is this first Adam, by analogy, 
the representative emblem ? 

1. If man, as first ushered on the stage, be the image 
-of God, it must be the image of God obstructed in his 
energies of creation. If this was intended to be signifi- 
cant in that direction, such would appear to be the 
implication. For God to go on summoning new races 
of intelligent and affectionate beings into existence for- 
ever, that he might enjoy their love, and fill them with 
his love, is as natural, on his plane of being, as that he 
should summon one race, the angels, or many thrones, 
dominions, principalities, and powers. And should he 
cease to create, it would be, on his plane of being, as 
anomalous as that Adam should be alone. If, then, the 
first Adam was in some respects the image of God, it 
would seem to shadow forth such a condition of divine 
obstruction in his creative functions; not of course from 



THE MIST ADAM. 63 

failure of omnipotence ; not from mechanical or physical 
causes; but rather from causes of expediency, moral 
causes, i. e., from a state of things in the moral universe 
rendering such suspension necessary. 

2. But if the first Adam be regarded as a representa- 
tive emblem of the entire human race, — if symbolically 
the race is present in him, what does the symbolization 
say concerning that race ? Independent of time or 
space, it says this race is to have dominion over all 
other races, but is in a condition not fitted for that 
destiny. It is in a moral condition as unsuited to such 
a position as Adam now is to replenish and subdue the 
earth. If it be asked, What moral condition ? might 
one answer, A masculine condition, as contrasted with a 
feminine ? 

These terms are, of course, highly analogical. We 
must not carry over mechanical and material 1 traces into 
the realm of spiritual relations. Certain moral qualities 
of meekness, gentleness, delicacy of thought and feeling, 
exquisite sensibility to emotions of pity, accompanied 
with lowly receptivity of the divine emotion and thought, 
the impregnation of the whole moral being with his 
vital influence, — these make minds feminine and mater- 
nal in relation to the care and training of other minds. 
And the implication is of a race anointed to such a 
destiny, but not morally fit for it ; in a condition too 
masculine, forceful, opinionative, self-assertive ; a moral 
condition tending instinctively to drive rather than 
lead ; to compel rather than win ; to govern by author- 
ity rather than train by patient tenderness; a disposition 
to act the divine rather than receive the divine; to 
impregnate others with divine ideas rather than be 
impregnated and made fruitful by the divine. 

3. But it is implied that the race, as a whole, is in 
fact selected to the supremacy over all other races. 



64 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

Such, still regarding the emblems as timeless, is the 
plain analogic import of naming the animals. " Thou 
hast put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen ; 
yea, and the beasts of the field, the fowl of the air, and 
the fish of the sea." Some of his subjects were made 
on the fifth day. All of them are described as if made 
before their king. He is mentioned as though formed 
last of all. The king, then, is younger than his sub- 
jects. And the reality shadowed forth is that the 
imperial race is younger than the subject-races. All 
orders and grades of being, thrones, dominions, princi- 
palities, powers, in the entire universe are subjected to 
a junior race. And as Adam was formed outside of the 
garden, although in the Eden precinct, it would seem 
that the younger race were brought in from one sphere 
to another more central. 

But, at the same time, it is indicated that the race so 
appointed to office is exposed to the influence of the 
being denoted by the tree of knowledge of good and 
evil. Whenever or wherever the reality is supposed to 
be, the two beings symbolized by the two trees co-exist; 
the} 7 are rooted in the same soil. The race-elect are not 
yet debarred from intercourse with the being denoted 
by the tree of life. They are, however, forbidden to 
hold intercourse with the other being. Of course it 
implies there was some liability on their part, some ten- 
dency that way, some danger, or the prohibition would 
be unnecessary. As on the natural plane the tree was 
fair and inviting and accessible, so it is implied that the 
being symbolized was attractive, and his ideas and prin- 
ciples apparently worthy of confidence. There was, 
therefore, the greater need of warning a younger and 
less experienced race of the fatal consequences of imbib- 
ing those ideas and submitting to that influence. 

As on the natural plane to eat of the forbidden tree 



THE FIRST ADAM. 65 

would exclude them from the tree of life, thus indi- 
rectly exposing them to physical decay without the 
adequate remedy, so, on the higher plane, to repose 
confidence in the being against whom they were warned 
would occasion their separation from the other being in 
whom alone was the principle of spiritual life, — thus 
weakening and finally destroying spiritual health in the 
individual and in the race as a complex organism or 
body politic, and tending to social disintegration and 
death. 

Such is the analogy in itself, regardless of time. Ask, 
then, whether the reference can be future. Can there 
be imagined anything in a future celestial state to cor- 
respond to this symbolization ? Quite the reverse. It 
is the great object of the mediatorial system to remove 
the obstruction from the divine creative energy, so that 
it may be consistent for God to go on waking new races 
into being forever, so that " of the increase of his gov- 
ernment there shall be no end." 

In the future heaven there will be no condition of the 
race that God will say is not good. Man will exercise 
actual dominion over all orders, nor will he be exposed 
to the influence of the being denoted by the prohibited 
tree. In fact, the whole symbolization refuses to adjust 
itself to any conceivable future condition of the celestial 
world. As little can the emblems be confined to the 
narrow bounds of the Eden stage. That would be tan- 
tamount to denying their emblematic character alto- 
gether, and sinking down to the baldest literalism. 

It is in the past, then, "before the foundation of the 
world," that the symbolization finds scope. The ani- 
mals of the tableau become the emblems of various races 
and orders of the Celestial Empire, all of them formed 
before the race of man. Man is a junior race, compared 
with thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers ; yet 
5 



bb THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

he is, at a certain stage of development, selected to 
exercise dominion over all. 

But at the point when the curtain rises, the race, 
strange to say, is not as yet in a condition immediately 
to exercise that dominion to which they are elected. 
They are as yet immature, politically and morally. 
They are in some sense like minors. They need disci- 
pline ; they must undergo an ordeal. But they are 
exposed to the influence of the illustrious prince, hither- 
to supreme, — • an influence which tends to stimulate 
them to premature development. Against this they are 
fully and unmistakably warned. Such, very briefly, is 
the relation shadowed forth. But in order to develop it 
more completely, it is necessary to follow this leading 
actor of the drama through the surprising changes of his 
symbolic role. 



THE SECOND ADAM. 67 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE SECOND ADAM. 

It is like the first scene in a play when Adam appears 
on the paradisiac stage. Enter Adam solus. Formed 
outside, behind the scenes, as it were, he literally eaters, 
or is led in, solitary and single. This is the first Adam. 
This single, incomplete Adam is made to name the 
lower animals. That is part of the play — a significant 
part. It implies dominion. " Thou hast put all things 
under his feet, all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts 
of the field." But that dominion the first Adam cannot 
fully exercise, because he cannot increase and multiply. 

The scene changes. Enter Adam bimorphic, complex, 
complete, the second Adam, for " he called their name 
Adam.'* Invested with the same dominion, we see him 
(that is them) now organically competent to assume its 
exercise, and by increase to subdue all below them. 

It is like the same body in a new, a perfected, form. 
The actor lies down in deep somnambulic repose. There 
is a manipulation of his substance. He rises, the same 
substance, as it were, newly distributed ; the same ma- 
terial, reorganized, rebuilt. It is a scenic regeneration 
that seems to pass before our eyes. The trance, or 
death-like sleep, ends. Surveying his counterpart (or 
symmorpK), his second self, an almost untranslatable 
exclamation escapes his lips : 

»en tiiw — " Zoth happaam." 1 

1 Literally, " This is the hit." Or, in common language, " This hits the 
.mark. You have hit it this time." 



68 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

It is the first word we are made to hear him utter. 
We are informed that in the first scene he did name the 
animals, but we were not made to hear him. This is, 
for us, his very first spoken word, as though he said: 
" This is the ideal. This the end and aim of all that 
has been, is, or shall be. The arrow now strikes the 
mark. Bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh, she 
shall be called Isha because she was taken out of Ish." x 
As he speaks we become aware of another actor on the 
stage, the same who has just gone through with the 
seeming new creative work, and who now responds. 

" For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, 
and shall cleave to his wife, and they twain shall be one 
flesh." 

Some have supposed these words to be spoken by 
Adam himself. But whether so, or, as we prefer to 
think, by the Lord, the}^ give increased prominence to 
the fact next stated : 

" And they were both naked, the man and his wife, 
and were not ashamed." The fact here indicated on 
the natural plane, is that the marriage was not at that 
time consummated. Had it been, there is no reason 
why the fact should not be stated as in the fourth chap- 
ter. " And Adam knew his wife ; " nor why her first 
child should not have been conceived at that time. 
Sterility was a curse. God had just blessed them, 2 and 
he commanded them to multiply. If they had obeyed, 
he would not have reversed that blessing. But it seems 
they did not immediately obey, and the reason if not 
stated is implied ; they were as yet immature and could 
not feel, any more than children, the sexual instinct. 
Had they felt it, they would also have experienced the 

* Isha is the feminine form of the word Ish, man. 

2 That is, if we are to consider ch. i. 26-28 as the general statement, of 
which ch. ii. 7-25 is the more detailed account. 



THE SECOND ADAM. 69 

feeling of natural modesty. It is not the savage state 
which dawns upon the world in the persons of this first 
pair. It is civilized man, refined man, historic man, 
that meets us here ; and whatever may have been true 
of something called prehistoric man, a mysterious feel- 
ing of timidity, or innocent bashfulness is, to civilized 
humanity, as natural at the period of adolescence, as is 
the passion of love itself. 

It is needful here to purge the mind of any lurking 
ascetic feeling, as though conjugal love were less than 
sacred. It is, in itself, not only pure, but the analogic 
image of that which is highest and holiest, divine love. 
In this sense it may be said to be holy. But so also is 
that modesty holy that necessarily accompanies it. 1 

Of what then, we now inquire, is this second Adam 
the symbol ? Still regarding the emblem as timeless, 
one would say there is here shadowed forth some great 
change in that race, of which the first Adam was the 
emblem, a reorganization of that race of some kind ; so 
that while retaining the masculine element of character, 
it should no longer be deficient in the feminine, or 
maternal. In this new shape of the emblem, the hus- 
band becomes the representative of the Head of the 
race, and the wife of the race itself. Thus the complex 
body, the " one flesh," denotes the entire anointed race, 
the complex Christ, One head, many members. But 
it is manifest that this reorganization is represented as 
in a measure effected, and yet as failing of its immediate 
object. It is a transaction represented as occurring in 
the presence of the two contrasted trees, and before 
the prohibited tree has been partaken of. We see a 

1 If the author does not controvert other views of this passage, it is not that 
he has not attentively considered them ; but because he prefers the method 
adopted of showing in an uncontroversial manner the results to which he has 
been led. 



70 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

plan carried to a certain point and there arrested. 
Some of the conditions for its immediate consummation 
were wanting. 

But subsequent scenes in the drama will show that 
though arrested, it was but deferred, and prophetically 
outlined as the underlying plot or plan of the mighty 
drama of ages. ^But it cannot fail to strike us, that the 
august reality symbolized by the building of Eve, lies 
back of that symbolized by her eating the forbidden 
fruit. Selection to dominion was anterior to defection. 
" Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, who blessed us 1 with all spiritual blessings in 
heaven, according as he selected us in him before the 
ages." The race then present was first selected for 
the dominion, and was then virtually blessed with all 
spiritual blessings in Christ, at a point anterior to the 
violation of the prohibition. The plan was then ma- 
tured; the covenant then formed; the promise then 
given ; a new spiritual relationship then initiated, the 
completion of which was, by fault of the race, arrested, 
and so deferred and made remote. It implies that 
although in some sense adopted and adapted to the joint 
headship of the universe, there was yet wanting between 
the race and its head that intense spiritual love and 
union, symbolized by marriage. The race accepted the 
relationship and its responsibilities, cheerfully, sincerely, 
indeed, but with superficial sense of their profound im- 
port. They were espoused, but their marriage was of 
necessity future, and was by transgression postponed to 
a distant date. 

Viewed from this point of vision, predestination ceases 
to be a painful theme, and affects our minds as it evi- 

1 5 tvXoytjaag, ' who blessed,' (aorist, ' not hath blessed,') the historical fact in 
the counsels of the Father being thought of throughout the sentence.— 
Alfokd. 



THE SECOND ADAM. 71 

dently did that of Paul. The subject always seems to 
exhilarate him. He kindles and glows with enthusiasm ; 
his language sparkles ; he is, as it were, transfigured, 
and his face shines like an angel's, as he exclaims, " For 
whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be 
conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be 
the first-born among many brethren. Moreover, whom 
he did predestinate, them he also called ; and whom he 
called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, 
them he also glorified." 1 

An induction of all the passages where " foreknow " 
is found in the New Testament, shows that it may be 
used of knowing persons at a former period of time. 
Paul speaks of the Jews who knew him from the be- 
ginning, literally " foreknew " him. He says God 
" foreknew " Israel, that is, knew or selected them at 
the beginning. " You only have I known of all the 
families of the earth." Christ is said to be "fore- 
ordained (literally foreknown) before the foundation of 
the world ; " that is, then known as present, and selected 
for a special purpose, as he himself says, " Thou lovedst 
me before the foundation of the world." Let it be 
borne in mind that while events can only be foreknown 
by anticipation, before they happen, persons can be fore- 
known, or known beforehand, as actually existing in 
reference to those foreseen events. Now, as Christ was 
thus foreknown, as an actually existing person in 
heaven, with reference to a far-reaching plan of ages, 
so the race might also be foreknown as an actually 
existing race in heaven in joint reference to that same 
plan. They could be foreknown as heirs ; that is, 
elected to the birthright in place of others, adopted, in 
short, to the primogeniture. Some twenty times this 
kind of adoption of the younger instead of the elder 

i Rom. viii. 29, 30. 



72 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

occurs in Scripture, in the Messianic pedigree, in the 
very focus of types. 1 

Hence of the head of the junior race, we read : 
" Whom God hath appointed heir of all things, being 
made so much better than the angels, as he hath by in- 
heritance obtained a more excellent name than they." 
Evidently an adoptive inheritance. The same of the 
race, the complex Christ, "Whom he foreknew," is 
equivalent to whom he elected, or adopted to the birth- 
right, in the room of others disinherited. 

The same parties, actually existent and present, are 
subsequently predestined to become symmorphs of his 
son. That is, as Eve was the symmorph or sexual coun- 
terpart of Adam. They were originally recognized as 
adoptive heirs. They are now predestined to become 
spiritually feminine in relation to Christ, in carrying 
out which predestination, they are to be subsequently 
called, justified, and glorified. 

That celestial race whom he had already adopted to 
the birthright of empire, were now appointed to an ordeal 
by which they should become spiritually symmorphic to 
Christ, receptive, submissive, 'conjugal, maternal ; in 
carrying out which plan, that entire race will be called, 
and if they listen to the call, justified, and if they per- 
severe, glorified, and crowned as at first proposed. 

The more full elucidation of this part of the sym- 
bolization must be deferred till we have examined the 
other leading actor in the tableau, the Serpent, to whom 
our attention will next be directed. 

1 Redeemer and Redeemed, see pp. 111-126. Lee and Shepard, 1864. 



THE SERPENT. 73 



CHAPTER X. 

THE SERPENT. 

We come next to the study of the serpent emblem. 
We first ask what this actor was, and what he did on 
the natural plane. This method is the more neces- 
sary in this case, and the more difficult, because of some 
conventional habits into which the mind is prone to 
relapse. Look carefully, then, at the stage. See the 
performer as he is described. Listen to his part. Then 
say what the hidden meaning, if any, may be. 

1. The first fact lying on the surface of the narrative 
is that a certain superiority is ascribed to the serpent 
over other animals. " Now the serpent was more subtle 
than any beast of the field which the Lord God had 
made." The word rendered " subtle " is sometimes 
translated prudent, wise. " A prudent man covereth 
shame." " Every prudent man dealeth with knowledge." 
" The wisdom of the prudent is to understand his way." 
"The prudent man looketh well to his goings." " The 
prudent are crowned with knowledge." 1 In all these 
cases, the word rendered " prudent " is that which is 
here rendered " subtle," and it is closely associated in 
all these cases with knowledge and wisdom. 

The Septuagint renders it " the serpent was wiser 
than any beast of the field." Christ says, " Be wise as 
serpents, harmless as doves." 2 Paul, indeed, speaks of 

1 Prov. xii. 16 ; xiii. 16 ; xiv. 8, 15, 18. 2 Matt. x. 16. 



74 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

his beguiling Eve by his subtlety. But subtlety was 
anciently considered an element of wisdom, as appears 
in the case of the wily Ulysses. Indeed, the word ren- 
dered subtlety is sometimes used even in Scripture, 
wholly in a good sense. " A wise son heareth his 
father's instruction." x 

The narrative does not imply that while the animals 
were all crafty, the serpent was more crafty ; but that 
while the animals possessed the usual amount of intel- 
ligence, the serpent possessed a greater amount, as 
evinced by the power of rational speech. The obvious 
intent of the tableau is to contrast the predicted degra- 
dation of the actor with his previous exaltation. If 
this performer is to receive poetic justice in the de- 
nouement, then the higher he stands before the onset 
the deeper his subsequent downfall. 

Accept, then, the Septuagint translation. The descrip- 
tion is laudatory in an intellectual point of view. The 
serpent was the wisest of animals. He was intellectu- 
ally at the head of the animal kingdom. Such was the 
part he bore upon the stage. Confine the attention to 
the natural plane. Resist the instinctive tendency to 
mingle the spiritual with the natural. Keep close to the 
garden stage. Regard the serpent as an actor acting a 
part, an animal specially created for that particular ob- 
ject ; or, in case you are skeptical as to the fact of such 
special creation, limit your attention to the fact that he 
is described as if such were the case. See the picture 
as it is painted. 

He converses rationally, yet in a natural manner. 
There is no hint of obsession or possession, no trace 
of the presence of a supernatural agent. Confine the 
attention to the single actor. Do not bring in the 
whole ophidian genus. Suppose a special creation for 

i Prov. xiii. 1. Sept. navovgyog. 



THE SERPENT. 75 

this particular occasion. If it be thought difficult to 
imagine a serpent either as speaking without vocal or- 
gans, or as possessing those organs, nothing forbids 
attributing to him a form suited to his part. Supply 
whatever the description implies. The object is to see 
the drama with the mind's eye. Not that the exposi- 
tion depends on assigning this or that form to the ser- 
pent ; but it is our liberty. It enters into the very 
nature of scenic representation. Whether a special ob- 
jective creation, or a visionary tableau, nothing forbids 
the idea of any form demanded by congruity. To an 
Agassiz, a single fossil tooth implies the entire skeleton 
of an extinct species. So to the dramatist, speech im- 
plies vocal organs, a brain, a form in keeping, Ancient 
sy mbolism is full of serpents with wings, feathers, hands, 
feet, human serpents, seraphic serpents. There is noth- 
ing violent in supposing that the wisest of animals was 
not the worst-looking. And if in subsequent visions 
of the Apocalypse the serpent-emblem appears mon- 
strous, and even grotesque, be it remembered that those 
visions take him at a period long subsequent to this, 
after the predicted degradation has begun to be in- 
flicted. Here congruity authorizes us, anterior to the 
denunciation, to invest him as we best can with a form 
suited to his part as wisest of all the animals which the 
Lord God had made. " Accordingly we find a general 
belief among the ancient Jews and early Christians that 
the serpent at first was not only gentle and innocuous, 
but in form and appearance among the most beautiful 
of creatures." * 

2. The second fact lying on the surface of the narra- 
tive, is that the animals, the serpent included, had 
been subjected to the first Adam, their junior. They 
had been brought to receive names from this parvenu, 

1 Busk on Genesis. 



76 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

brought in from outside, while he was yet a minor, and 
incapable of propagating his species. 

3. The third fact (to be more fully considered here- 
after) is, that the serpent attacks the second Adam. The 
representation might easily have been differently man- 
aged. The attack might have been delivered on the 
first Adam prior to his reconstruction in the second. 
It was no accident; but design on the part of the dram- 
atist. 

4. The fourth fact (merely glanced at here for com- 
pleteness) is, that the penalty is represented as future ; 
as the remote result of a conflict with a seed not now 
visible upon the stage. That penalty, of course, it would 
be out of keeping to suppose exhibited to the eye. 

5. The fifth fact is, that while man is driven out of 
the garden, the serpent remains within it master of the 
field. 

Of what, then, we now inquire, was the serpent the 
emblem or symbol ? We shall endeavor to show that 
it was the emblem of invisible agencies, irrespective of 
moral character ; i. e., that might be good or bad ; or 
might include both ; the moral character being deter- 
mined by accompanying features of the tableau. 

1. The serpent is, in some respects, the best natural 
emblem of supernatural and mysterious agencies. It 
is, for instance, the only animal that seems to vanish. 
You see it in the grass one moment, the next it is gone. 
Yet you have hardly seen it move. A bird or fish darts 
as rapidly, but you see the wing, or fin ; you hear the 
whirr, or splash. The sinuous reptile, also, moves with 
no apparent organs of locomotion. It has them, but 
they are not obvious. They are concealed, or to the 
common view mysterious. Again, the serpent species 
presents the widest extremes of size, and the strongest 
contrasts of beauty or ugliness, of harmlessness or of 



THE SERPENT. 77 

deadly venom. There is no species so well adapted by 
nature to symbolize intense spiritual antagonisms. A 
dove is a good natural symbol of a gentle, loving spirit ; 
but there are no doves that secrete a fatal poison in their 
bills. There are no carnivorous lambs. There are no 
tarantulas that may be worn alive for ornament on the 
neck of beauty. To each species, except the serpent, 
there seems assigned by nature, a tolerably well-defined 
character, as carnivorous or non-carnivorous, noxious or 
harmless, repulsive or beautiful, adaptedness to sym- 
bolize either evil or good. The serpent is adapted to 
both. There are snakes as beautiful and harmless as 
humming-birds ; they have been used as playthings by 
children, as bracelets by ladies ; they have been fostered 
in houses as a protection against vermin ; nay, cherished 
as bed-fellows. Yet what can be more appalling than 
the rattlesnake's warning, the distended jaws of the 
cobra, the lightning-leap of the anaconda ? 

2. The serpent has in fact been accepted in all nations 
as the emblem of supernatural powers, or divinities, 
good and bad. It is well known that serpent-worship 
exists at the present day in India, and is one cause of 
the great increase of deadly reptiles. The natives, when 
solicited to kill the cobra, have been known to refuse, 
and, instead, to address their prayers to him. Snakes 
alone, it is stated, in 1877, killed seventeen thousand 
persons in India. One would naturally suppose that 
the symbolism of evil would quite overshadow and nul- 
lify that of good in such animals ; yet, strange as it may 
seem, the most ancient and wide-spread conception of 
the serpent emblem was that of the good divinity (aga- 
ihodemon), or good genius. " When we first meet 
with it, whether in the wilderness, in the groves of 
Epiclaurus, or in the Sarmatian mountains, the serpent 
is always the good divinity, bringer of health and good 



78 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

fortune, the teacher of wisdom, the oracle of future 

events Love and admiration seem to be the main 

features of the faith." 2 

Writers on this and kindred mythological topics have 
collected an immense mass of evidence, at which it is 
scarcely possible here even to glance. The serpent was 
associated as an emblem with the worship of every one 
of the classic deities; as with those of Egypt, India, 
China, Scandinavia, and Mexico. It was conspicuously 
introduced into the ancient mysteries, which were the 
very heart of the old ethnic religions. The dragon has 
been borne on the military standards (which were ob- 
jects of worship) of the Assyrians, Parthians, Scythians, 
Saxons, Chinese, Danes, Egyptians, Persians, Normans, 
and Vandals. The monumental sculptures of Egypt, 
of India, and of Mexico are full of serpent emblems of 
almost every conceivable form and combination. Indi- 
vidual heroes and whole nations have boasted them- 
selves serpenti gence — serpent-born. 

" In Egypt, Syria, Greece, India, Persia, China, Scan- 
dinavia, America, everywhere on the globe, it has been 
a prominent emblem. Nothing is more certain than 
that the serpent at a very remote period was regarded 
with high veneration as the most mysterious of living 
creatures. Its habits were imperfectly understood. It 
was invested with extraordinary qualities. Alike the 
object of fear, admiration, and wonder, it became early 
connected with man's superstitions." 2 

It has been debated whether or not the universality 
of this symbol indicated a common origin of mythologi- 
cal systems, but the fact is undisputed. 

The argument for a paradisiacal origin is felt on all 
hands to be strong ; but a class of writers hesitate to 

1 Fergusson. Tree and Serpent Worship. Preface. 
8 Squier. Serpent Symbol in America, pp. 155, 157. 



THE SERPENT. 79 

pronounce it conclusive, and incline to fall back upon 
the theory of like causes in like circumstances produc- 
ing like effects. Says Mr. Gliddon (as quoted by 
Squier) : 

" Man's mind has always conceived everywhere, in 
the same method, everything that relates to himself, 
because the inability in which his intelligence is circum- 
scribed to figure to his mind's eye existence distinct 
from his own constrains him to revolve, in the pictorial 
or sculptural delineation of his thoughts, within the same 
circle of ideas ; and ergo, the figurative representations 
of his ideas must ever be, in all" ages and countries, the 
reflex of the same hypotheses, material or metaplrysical. 
May not the emblem of the serpent and egg, as well in 
the New as in the Old World, have originated from a 
similar organic law, without thereby establishing inter- 
course?" 

It seems strange that it has not occurred to these 
writers that there may be an element of truth on both 
sides. There is an " organic law," undoubtedly, as real 
and as resistless as the law of gravitation. But there 
may also have been a historic Adam, a historic garden 
of Eden, and a historic serpent. Grant that all nations 
have recognized the serpent as the emblem of myste- 
rious or supernatural agencies, because it is so by the 
law of creation ; it may also be true that it was for this 
very reason it was selected by the Author of Nature to 
perform a deeply significant emblematic part on the 
paradisaic stage. 

But not only has the serpent been extensively, not to 
say universally, regarded as the appropriate emblem of 
the mysterious, the supernatural; but there is another 
fact of great significance to which we would call special 
attention. It is the fact that while in nature the evil 
suggestiveness of the emblem far outweighs the good, 



80 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

in Ethnic usage, on the contrary, the good meaning has 
been more prominent than the evil, and that the further 
back we travel in the past, the more prominently the 
serpent becomes the recognized emblem of the agatho- 
demon, the good divinity, or good genius. Writers on 
the' subject who disincline to admit a historic paradise, 
express their astonishment at this circumstance in the 
frankest manner. It is strange, they say, it is wonder- 
ful, it is unaccountable, but it is a fact. To us, who admit 
a historic paradise, it is highly significant, but not in the 
least unaccountable. 

In developing the significance of this actor on the 
Eden stage, however, we propose first to glance at the 
later Scripture usage, and perhaps we may be struck 
with the fact that here also, as in Ethnic usage, the 
suggestion of evil is strongest at the end, while that of 
good meets us only as we ascend toward the beginning. 

That the serpent or dragon of the Apocalypse is a 
symbol, all admit. No one supposes that there is, or 
ever was, a real reptile of that size, form, color, and 
agency. And when it says, " which is the devil and 
Satan," 1 every reader understands the "is" as he does 
the " est " in the celebrated formula, hoc est corpus 
meum. The expression, " This is my body," all Protes- 
tants understand as equivalent to, " This symbolizes my 
body." 

Again, the reader will reflect that when Satan is 
mentioned as a military leader, his army is included. 
The historian says, Alexander overthrew the Persian 
empire; Csesar defeated the Germans; Charles Martel 
vanquished the Saracens; Napoleon subjugated Europe, 
and was routed at Waterloo. The general gives name 
to the army. The army is the body ; the commander 
the "soul," as it were. In this sense, all may understand 

i Rev. xx. 2. 



THE SEEPENT. 81 

the dragon to symbolize the entire invisible host opposed 
and hostile to man. This emblem is called both serpent 
and dragon, and is emphatically identified with the em- 
blem in Genesis. Thus " the dragon, the great, the ser- 
pent, the ancient," 1 and " the dragon, the serpent, the 
ancient." 2 It is clear that the emblem (however varied 
in the details of the description) is essentially the same 
as that in the Eden tableau. The emblem varies to suit 
the extremes of a long course of development. And it 
will probably be conceded that here the symbolism is 
malign. There is no trace of the agatho-demon, or good 
genius, in these visions. Yet two things are prominent 
in the representation : First, that the dragon maintains 
his ground in the scenic representation, in the visionary 
heaven and before the throne of God, until after a cer- 
tain great crisis and a severe conflict ; and second, that 
the nations on the visionary earth are exhibited as 
worshiping the dragon. We do not, of course, here 
attempt an exposition of Apocalyptic emblems. We 
simply say that such is the representation on its face. 
The emblem is to the inhabitants of the visionary earth 
an emblem of supernatural powers ; and those powers, 
in their view, are not malign. In short, John sees in 
vision the nations regarding the emblem precisely as 
history shows they always have regarded it, as symbol- 
izing good, celestial powers, or divinities. 

Does it not also suggest the idea of an order of beings 
who once were benign, but from whom, at least as con- 
templated from the divine standpoint (however it may 
seem to the deluded nations), every trace of benignity 
has fled? 

1 Eev. xii. 9 : — The article b is seven times used in this verse, .... 6 <5p<kwv 

b HEyas, b o<pii b ap^alos, b KaXobfxtvog SiafioAos, Kal b 2arui%, b irkavwv tyjv ohoVfifvnv 
BXvv .... 

2 Eev. xx. 2 : — The article is here also repeated emphatically, . . . . rdv 
SpaicovTa tov 6<piv rhv ap^alov 6's ion didfioAo$ /ca< Saruvoj .... 

6 



82 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

Now it is the same John who had seen these visions, 
who says, looking back at the close of life upon the 
scenes of Christ's ministry: "As Moses lifted up the 
serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be 
lifted up." x Was that brazen serpent, then, in the wil- 
derness a malign emblem ? Or was it the agatho-demon, 
or good genius, which was shadowed forth? How the 
Israelites regarded it may be inferred from the fact 
that they worshiped the brazen serpent during their 
frequent relapses into idolatrj r , even to the reign of 
Hezekiah, who finally broke it in pieces. 

Bat it is Moses, the writer of Genesis, who lifted up 
that serpent in the wilderness. How striking the coin- 
cidence ! The author of Genesis and the author of the 
Apocalypse seem to join hands as regards the signifi- 
cance of this emblem. When Moses made the serpent 
of brass, and any one that had been bitten looked at it 
and was healed, he evidently could not regard it as the 
emblem of a malign power. How could a malign emblem 
be a type of Christ ? He must have regarded it as a 
type of the celestial or supernatural in general, includ- 
ing contrasts of good and evil . beings that might be 
evil, and that might be good. As mankind were suffer- 
ing from the hostility of one class of celestials, they 
might be healed and saved by the friendly intervention 
of another class. 

We are now prepared to study more minutely the 
part assigned to this remarkable emblem in the para- 
disaic tableau. It is, in our view, the emblem of a great 
social (or shall we say political?) organization in the 
celestial world at a period far back in the ages of the 
past (the ages out of whose emergencies earth's episode 
had sprung) — a period when political corruption was 
comparatively latent, and original benignity not entirely 

1 John iii. 14. 



THE SERPENT. 83 

and openly lost. Let ns, then, patiently trace out the 
meaning of the symbolization from this point of view. 
Here is a grand political problem submitted to our 
inspection. It is the problem of a race conflict, using 
the term race in a qualified sense excluding the notion 
of derivation by physical birth. 

As the serpent is described in the tableau as superior 
to the other animals in the Garden, so the race he sym- 
bolizes was superior, in an analogous manner, to all 
other races in that primeval, celestial empire of which 
paradise is the emblem. The nature of that superiority 
is also plainly indicated. It was a race whose voice alone 
was heard in public affairs. All other orders or races 
were dumb. It was a ruling race, whose statesmanship 
was unquestioned by subject races. The rectitude, the 
expediency, the wisdom of their administration, no sub- 
ject class or race could dispute. 

Now, without indicating how the affairs of that Empire 
came to be in such a 'state, we are, by the symbolization 
introduced, as spectators at a crisis when all these races 
or classes of the celestial world are subjected to a younger 
race. As all animals, with the serpent at their head, 
were brought by the Lord to Adam to be named, so all 
celestial thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers 
were subjected by divine authority to a junior celestial 
race ; and it is quite important to notice that this was 
not arbitrary, but for cause. The designation of the 
junior race to the succession is carefully symbolized as 
occurring at a point subsequent to their being warned 
against trusting the individual at the head of that metro- 
politan sphere (the tree of knowledge), yet, at a period 
prior to their own reorganization as symbolized by the 
building of Eve, the complement of the complex Adam. 

The older divines have represented the matter differ- 



84 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

ently. The designation of man to supremacy was arbi- 
trary. The party in power were not corrupt, and had 
done nothing to forfeit public confidence. The eleva- 
tion of a junior race above them occasioned the fall of 
the angels and their hostility to man. This hypothesis 
seems to account for the fall of angels only too well. 
One ca*nnot avoid feeling that they had some just 
grounds for complaint. Jealousy was perfectly natural 
on such a supposition. But particular attention is called 
to the fact that the Irypothesis in this particular is 
directly contradicted by the emblems, consistently inter- 
preted by strictest analogic law. If the tree of life 
denotes a person, as we have demonstrated, the tree of 
knowledge denotes a person. Eating is believing. The 
prohibition of eating the tree of knowledge is a prohibi- 
tion of believing in a person. That person is ipso facto 
declared to be, officially, unworthy of confidence. It is 
for cause that the junior race is designated to supreme 
dominion. With this correction, the hypothesis of Ed- 
wards, and of the older divines, becomes not only intel- 
ligible, but free from objection. All the successive 
features of the drama become invested with new signifi- 
cance. The tree denotes the individual leader, the ser- 
pent the entiro party or class led. (This doubling of 
emblems, as we have already remarked, is a familiar 
feature of all analogic pictures.) The serpent assails 
Eve argumentative!} 7 . We do but glance at it here for 
completeness, as we must make it the snbject of a future 
chapter. And what is the scope and point of that 
argument ? The ruling celestial race is symbolized as 
exerting an argumentative influence upon the race-elect 
to dispel their distrust of their chief. They deny that 
he is unworthy of belief. Nay, more, they deny that 
God has in fact said so. It is the proper logical recoil 



THE SERPENT. 85 

of a criminated party in self-defense, and in attack upon 
their rivals. 

The result is that the political revolution is for the 
time defeated. The race-elect are not only not inaugu- 
rated, but are driven out into exile, while the older race 
remain victorious masters of the field. 



86 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 



CHAPTER XL 

THE ATTACK. 

We come to consider the dialogue between the ser- 
pent and the woman. The chief difficulty is to avoid 
the conventional habit of overloading the emblematic 
part, confounding the sign and thing signified. The 
actress is presented to our view as a minor, under age ; 
her eyes are not yet open ; she is, as it were, a child. 
The serpent, the wisest of animals, is still but an ani- 
mal, and is to be credited with only such comprehension 
of his part and such motives as such an animal might 
naturally have in such a drama. Of course it is but a 
tableau, and no moral character attaches to the conduct 
of the actors, any more than in any tableau, or charade, 
or tragedy. 

As to motive, we merely need to conceive enough to 
impel the speakers to act their part. In case of the ser- 
pent (whose form is not described, the imagination being 
left free to dress him for his part), the motive may be 
conceived as part curiosity and part jealousy. Animals 
are very susceptible to the latter passion. A favorite dog 
will admit no rival in his master's affection. A case is 
related where a large dog seized a smaller one of which 
he was jealous, and held him under water till he was 
drowned. A dog will be jealous of a baby in the family. 
Many animals show plain traces of this feeling. This 
animal is described as more intelligent than the dog or 
any other animal. Now, man is placed above him ; and 



THE ATTACK. 87 

yet at the same time a restriction is laid upon man which 
had not been laid on the serpent. Can it be that the new 
master is forbidden to do as he pleases ? 

" Is it even so, that God hath said, Ye shall not eat of 
every tree in the garden ? " 1 

A question may imply doubt or denial, and the point of 
doubt is whether God has in fact said so, a question not 
so much above the limited intelligence of an animal like 
this, as to seem incongruous in a tableau or charade. The 
woman replies : 

" We may eat of the fruit of the garden, but of the 
fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God 
hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, 
lest ye die." 

" Ye shall not surely die, for God doth know that in 
the day ye eat thereof your eyes shall be opened, and ye 
shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." 

Abstracting the mind from conventional notions, we 
see in this not a denial of the truth of what God said, 
but of the fact that God had said it. It cannot be that 
God has said this because, in fact, the fruit in question 
has a different effect, and God knows it, and would not 
state what was not the fact. This, it is conceived, is the 
most significant feature of the dialogue. 

The effect on the woman's mind is in keeping. She 
" saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was 
pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make 
one wise ; " and though it is not stated, it is implied, that 
she concluded God could not have forbidden it. The 
narrative closely followed, places the prohibition prior to 
her appearance on the stage. So far as the narrative 
states, she might be supposed unaware of its having been 
given. She certainly did not hear it. It is not asserted 

1 See Robinson's Gesenius, art. ^3 Bi* ; where the question is so translated. 
See also Dr. Murphy's Commentary on the passage. 



88 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

that Adam had told her ; and if he had, there was a pos- 
sibility that she might have misunderstood him, or that 
he might have misconceived what the Lord actually said. 
The question of the serpent is a question of fact. Did 
the Lord say thus and so ? And the design of the wo- 
man's part is evidently to indicate her disbelief of the 
fact, or, in other words, her conclusion that the Lord did 
not say so ; and that she was, therefore, at liberty to eat 
the fruit if she wished. This may seem at first sight a 
slight variation from the conventional idea, but it will 
be found to have important bearings on the general 
result. 

This brings out more prominently another feature of 
the drama. Adam is not represented as beguiled. He 
had heard the prohibition, and could not be made to 
doubt the fact of God's having said so. The serpent 
does not address him. The working of his mind is not 
described. The actress is deceived (to think God had 
not said it) : the actor is not ; the woman acts under the 
influence of the serpent : the man does not ; " For Adam 
was first formed, then Eve, and Adam was not deceived, 
but the woman, being deceived, was in the transgres- 
sion." 2 In short, the representation is that Adam yields 
to his wife's influence : " She gave also to her husband, 
and he did eat with her." 

We repeat, that the main difficulty with these emblems 
is to abstract the mind from their analogic significance 
and confine the attention strictly to the child-like drama. 
The emblems are indeed so full of meaning; that mean- 
ing has been so confusedly brought down upon the stage 
and mixed with the symbols, that it requires renewed 
and persistent effort to discriminate, and see the tableau 
as a tableau, the charade as a charade, the intelligent 
animal (a sort of masculine Elsie Venner), and the two 

i 1 Tim. ii. 13, 14. 



THE ATTACK. * 89 

minors speaking their pieces, with no more fatal conse- 
quences depending than in any pretty domestic fairy- 
show. 

Of what, then, is this the emblem ? To answer this 
question demands an entirely different train of thought, 
upon an entirely different, a vastly higher plane of be- 
ino-. We leave the domain of shadows and enter that 
of realities. Ascend in time and space. Move with free- 
dom on the empyreal stage. Borrow even of science a 
noble familiarity with vast periods of duration. Leave 
behind geologic periods as falling sand-grains in the hour- 
glass of eternity. Wing easy flights over mountain-chains 
of glory. Be at home amidst principalities and powers 
on high, and boundless deeps of celestial populations, 
compared with which all earth's myriads are but a drop 
of the bucket, or as the fine dust of the balance. 

It has already been intimated that some great change 
is shadowed forth in the junior race, or race elect to em- 
pire, of the nature of reconstruction, or reorganization. 
Conceive of that change as not mechanical or artificial, 
but intellectual and moral in its method and process. That 
race was already exposed to the influence of the exalted 
intellect at the head of the angelic administration. They 
are warned against him. Conceive of that prohibition, 
as a measure of instruction and defense. Consider it as 
more than a curt, dry precept, without explanation or 
reason assigned. Do not make it a sudden military or- 
der — uttered at a precise moment, imperative, and only 
to be obeyed right or wrong. Supply an element of time. 
Conceive that the junior race were instructed, put on 
their guard, and with due repetitions were forearmed 
against the speciousness of imperial patronage — the 
blandishments of celestial court favor. Conceive, more- 
over, of the race as being in a condition spiritually un- 
suited to the destiny to which they have been designated. 



90 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

They are not spiritually receptive of the Divine. They 
are not maternal in reference to possible future new-born 
races. Their condition is one rather of defect than of 
positive culpability, a kind of spiritual minority. There 
is one, however, of their number who is meek, lowly, 
unselfish, and receptive toward God. The race is re- 
organized with him as head. 

As a great party of many millions, spread over a con- 
tinent, may be in a brief space reorganized by the ap- 
pointment of an individual as chief, and may be animated 
by his spirit and controlled by his genius, as one body, 
so on a higher plane in modes kindred to a celestial phase 
of being. The race is reorganized, and an attempt made 
to excite enthusiastic devotion to their leader, so that 
while the entire race was elect of God, he should be the 
elect of the race : while the entire race was one complex 
Christ, he should be the Christ. 1 

Now between this reorganized race and the reigning 
race, comes on the campaign of discussion and contro- 
versy. The issues are substantially the same with those 
that have been debated in all ages under changing forms, 
in earthly governments and parties, and are being de- 
bated, with increasing distinctness, to this day (the cam- 
paign of ages is one) — the principles of truth, meekness, 
self-denial, faith. No party in power ever realizes its 
own corruption, or fails to resent the attempt to displace 
it. They defend their own past record, and attack the 
party assailing them. Such is the attitude of the celes- 
tial cosmocracy, as shadowed out in the tableau. 

Far from manifesting disloyalty to God, they assume 
to act as his representatives. They appeal to God as on 

1 It is not the author's wish, in the present volume, to raise the question of 
the Person, or Divinity of Christ. That subject is waived for the present 
entirely. A statement of the author's views may be found in a former work, 
Redeemer and Redeemed, ch. x., Only-Begotten, pp. 95-110 ; published by 
Lee & Shepard, Boston, 1864. 



THE ATTACK. 91 

their side. They do not address themselves to the indi- 
vidual Christ, but to his party, his race ; and their whole 
method is apologetic. Has God indeed forbidden you to 
repose confidence in our illustrious chief ? 1 Has he in- 
deed warned you that his ideas and principles and gen- 
eral influence are injurious ? When, how, by whom has 
he said this ? How do you know that he has said it ? 
By what organ of revelation, by what authorized inter- 
preter, did he say such a thing of his own first-born, who 
has long enjoj^ed the first place in his favor, and admin- 
istered government in his name as his representative? It 
cannot be that he has said this. It is a mistake ; a mis- 
representation. For God doth know, and we appeal to 
him, that the bright being so aspersed is worthy of con- 
fidence. His ideas and principles are right, his influence 
on younger orders, salutary, stimulating, and developing 
their mental powers, and qualifying them to judge inde- 
pendently, of all great questions of right and wrong. 
How, then, can you believe yourselves forbidden to trust 
one whom God placed at the summit of power? See him 
where he stands like a goodly cedar, deep-rooted in his 
native soil. See how fair he is in his greatness, so that 
the cedars in the garden of God cannot hide him, and 
the chestnut-trees are not like his branches, nor any tree 
in the garden of God is like him for beauty ! See how 
all the trees in the garden of God envy him ! 

How can you believe that God has spoken a word 
derogatory of his own glorious offspring ? What has 
he done ? Is he not beautiful, and wise as beautiful, 
and prosperous as wise ? Does he not seal up the sum, 
full of wisdom, perfect in beauty, perfect in his ways 
from the clay that he was created ? Sits he not en- 

1 The Serpent is the emblem of the party, including its chief; the Tree of 
Knowledge of good and evil, is an emblem of the chief separately. This 
doubling of emblems is a familiar feature of all symbolic illustrations, sacred 
and secular. 



92 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

throned on the holy mount of God — where God him- 
self placed him ? And is not his heart as the heart of 
God ? 1 Divinely warned against him, say you ? For- 
bidden to trust him on pain of death ! Without arrest, 
without public impeachment, without trial by his peers ! 
Impossible. You are the victims of some strange halluci- 
nation. God has never said this. 

It has been supposed that the drift of thought in the 
colloquy was to admit that God had said thus and so, 
and to deny the truth of the divine allegation. Such is 
not the teachiDg of the emblem. The logical drift is, 
God has not said this, for it is not true, and God cannot 
lie. Such questionings and discussions, though con- 
densed in the tableau into a few brief sentences, may 
have extended over a wide scope in time and space, 
agitating the public mind of empire for years or centu- 
ries. Under the pressure of such arguments and ap- 
peals, it is implied that the mind of the race-elect began 
to yield. (" The woman saw the tree that it was good 
for food.") That grand and splendid Son of the Morn- 
ing looked worthy of trust. The longer they looked at 
his personal and official splendor (" pleasant to the eyes"), 
the better they were pleased with him ; ambition woke 
within them under the stimulus of his seductive elo- 
quence "(" desirable to make one wise ") until, instead 
of resolute non-intercourse, they believed in him, and 
accepted honors at his hand. (" She took of the fruit, 
and did eat.") 

But, as in the tableau, Adam was not directly influ- 
enced by the serpent, so it is implied that the Head of 
the race-elect was not affected. He stood' alone against 
the arguments and appeals of the party in power, and 
against the course of his own race. " Adam was not 
deceived." What he did, he did for Eve's sake, and not 

i Ezek. xxviii. 



THE ATTACK. 93 

from listening to the Serpent. Such is the actual fact 
on the natural plane. It symbolizes a being, a leader, 
who, resisting a mistaken policy of his own party, or race 
(or state), refuses to desert them, excuses their fault, 
advocates their cause, and freely chooses to share their 
disgrace. The symbols say, as plainly as symbols can 
be conceived as saying, " He was made sin for them, 
who knew no sin." When the reaction against them 
set in, he stood up for them, and pleaded their cause ; 
and when they were outlawed, placed under ban as it 
were, he volunteered to share their exile. He placed 
himself in the path of the triumphant despotism of the 
skies, and virtually said, " You reach them only across 
my dead body ; I will ransom them from your power ; 
and redeem their forfeited honor, or I will perish with 
them for ever." 

Now, at length, the race begin to realize their situa- 
tion, and experience some of those feelings of meekness, 
humility, and grateful affection to their Head in which 
they had been deficient ; not in full strength — yet suf- 
ficiently to prompt to ineffectual efforts at self-justification 
before him — beautifully symbolized by the instinctive 
prompting of natural modesty, " and they sewed fig- 
leaves together and made themselves aprons." All the 
excuses they could invent for themselves, or he devise 
for them and for himself as identified with them, were 
under the circumstances frail and temporary ; excuses, 
but not expiations ; apologies, but not an atonement. 



94 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE EXAMINATION. 

The next scene in the drama is the dialogue between 
the Lord and Adam and Eve. We return once more to 
the natural plane. We examine this judicial inquest as 
a scene in a tableau or drama. We leave the empyreal 
stage. The scope of thought contracts. We descend to 
the earth-plane. We ask what is the objective scene 
presented by the narrative ? Through the words as a 
transparent medium, we look with the mind's eye upon 
the actors ; we listen to the. colloquy — as though real- 
ized before us — waiving for the moment all thought of 
a symbolic meaning. They hear the voice of the Lord 
God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and 
hide themselves from the presence of the Lord God, 
amongst the trees of the garden. The following dia- 
logue ensues: 

" Adam, where art thou ? " 

" I heard thy voice in the garden, and was afraid, be- 
cause I was naked, and I hid myself." 

" Who told thee that thou wast naked ? Hast thou 
eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou 
shouldest not eat ? " 

44 The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she 
gave me of the tree, and I did eat." 

" What is this that thou hast done ? " 

" The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat." 

The following points are worthy of attention : 



THE EXAMINATION. 95 

(1) The act of hiding was subsequent to the act of 
making themselves aprons. That, from the description, 
seems the prompting of natural modesty ; this, the 
prompting of fear. Then they felt each other's eye ; 
now they fear the eye of the Lord God. 

(2) The summons is in the singular number — not 
where are ye ? but where art thou ? And it contains 
no necessary suggestion of fault-finding. # » It may be 
uttered with such tones and inflections as to imply 
blame ; but it may as naturally be uttered with such 
tones and inflections as a father would use on not find- 
ing a child where he expected to find him. It is need- 
ful to attend to minutiae like this, in order to divest the 
mind of conventional notions and associations not sug- 
gested by the description. 

(3) The answer is in the first person. It is " I," not 
" we." The speaker assumes the responsibility: "I was 
naked," " I was afraid," " I hid myself." 

(4) The further inquiry of the Lord God, " Who told 
thee ? " &c, is also directed to the man alone ; not who 
told you that ye were naked ? — have ye eaten ? &c, 
but "thou" "thee" It was to the man the prohibition 
wasgiven while in a solitude that was not good ; it is of 
him the inquiry is made. Moreover, the nakedness was 
a previously existing fact, when the prohibition was 
given — though the subject, being a minor, was uncon- 
scious of it. How, then, had he become conscious of it 
except by the stimulating effect of the tree, producing 
precocious maturity ? These words can be conceived of 
as spoken in an awfully solemn and menacing tone; and 
they can just as naturally be conceived of as spoken in 
a cheerful and gentle tone. All depends on whether 
this is regarded as a simple tableau vivant or not. 

(5) Now comes the allusion to the woman. Notice 
what it says and what it does not say. Notice it as 



9(5 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

forming an element of a dramatic part. Adam does not 
allude to her till compelled by the question. He states 
the simple facts, without exaggerating her share. If 
anything, he suppresses her fault. He does not say she 
herself ate of the tree at all ; he does not say she ate 
first ; he only says, " She gave me of the tree." In a 
dramatic representation much would depend on tone and 
gesture whether this would suggest extenuation or in- 
crimination. A skillful impersonator could easily make 
it do either. Conventionalism says he throws all the 
blame on his wife. Let it be imagined, just for the sake 
of variety, that his tone and manner imply (what a 
dramatic instinct will easily divine), that he takes it, as 
far as he honestly can, on himself. Accordingly, when 
the Lord turns to her and asks, " What is this that thou 
hast done ? " we conceive of it as equivalent to his 
saying : " Is that all ? Did you only give him the 
fruit? Did you take none yourself? How was it? " 

In her response, Eve mentions two things her husband 
had omitted, may we not say suppressed like an unwilling 
witness. She had listened to the serpent, the wisest of 
animals ; she had been deceived , she had been first to 
eat of the forbidden tree. 

Thus far we treat the scene, with conscientious fidelity, 
as we would a scene in any drama upon the stage. We 
ignore for the moment completely, all latent or symbolic 
meanings, and all conventional prepossessions. We try 
in all simplicity to put nothing into the emblems that is 
not there, and to neglect nothing (however trivial at 
first sight) that realty is there. 

And now the question changes, and the mental atti- 
tude must change. We ask what is the symbolic import, 
and we become in a moment transcendental in the best 
sense of that much abused word. We leave this world 
of shadows which slumbering mortals call real, and we 



THE EXAMINATION. 97 

enter that world of entities which are alone real and 
unchanging, " For the things which are seen are tem- 
poral, but the things which are not seen are eternal." 
We ascend and " sit with Christ in heavenly places.". 
From that celestial standpoint we endeavor to contem- 
plate the history of the ages in the light of God. 

Ascending the mighty tide of development out of 
which earth's episodes have sprung, we reach that an- 
cient crisis (the true historic eocene) when the elect 
race, the complex Christ, stood dismayed before the 
public sentiment of heaven, now turning resistlessly 
against them. This race, with its chief, or head, one 
body politic, one Christ, has been elected to displace 
another race with its head, or chief, from administrative 
supremacy. This has brought them inevitably into the 
very focus of the celestial eyes, the observed of all 
observers ; and as the work in its essential nature was 
intellectual and moral, it involved discussion of the char- 
acter and conduct of the party or race to be displaced, and 
of the race-elect. It is what must happen under any 
conceivable form of government in any conceivable 
world. It is what has happened under all forms of gov- 
ernment in all ages of earth's history. It is what is 
happening more and more prominently as we draw on 
toward the grand climacteric of time. Politics are one 
in all the aeons, and so swift is now the rush of events 
once in every four years, the whole Eden tableau re- 
enacts itself, for substance, on a stage of continental 
proportions. 

The race-elect were exposed, inevitably from the nature 
of the case, to such treatment from the older race they 
were destined to succeed, as ambition, .pride, and jealousy 
would- naturally prompt. It is just what the emblems 
(if they are emblems at all) shadow forth by the sim- 
plest law of analogy. They were exposed to an ordeal 



98 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

of censure and of seduction. Intimidation would alter- 
nate with persuasion. 

Appeals would be made to every motive. The char- 
acter of the existing chief and of his subordinates would 
be ably defended, — the pretensions of the newly chosen 
race, or order, would be subjected to the severest ordeal. 
If the race-elect were stanch and successful in debate, 
and blameless in conduct, they would become promi- 
nent ; if they allowed themselves to be cajoled by the 
appeals of the party in power, they would be even more 
prominent. If they displaced the ruling race, they must 
themselves assume the responsibilities of office; if they 
compromised, they would be induced to accept offices 
of honor and emolument under the ruling race. Either 
way they would be conspicuous. 

But any such supposed compromise would be not only 
a violation of the precept forbidding them to believe in 
the existing imperial head, but it would be an abandon- 
ment of the campaign for his removal. He was to be 
removed, not by force but by truth. Of course if they 
admitted his defense to be valid, they could not insist on 
his removal. In avowing confidence in him, whether 
by accepting office under him or not, they accepted his 
principles and spirit, and were bound consistently to 
defend him or apologize for him. Of course, in so doing 
they themselves became exposed to the sweep of those 
Divine objections which had set strongly against him. 

Now, whenever, by any means, they should begin to 
realize this fact, that they had abandoned the enterprise 
appointed them, and become themselves liable to the 
divine censure, they would naturally shrink from pub- 
licity, they would retire from notoriety, they would court 
seclusion, resign all official responsibilities, and retire to 
private life. This is shadowed forth by hiding in the 



THE EXAMINATION. 99 

midst of the trees of the garden. They would seek to 
pass unnoticed in the common throng. 

Now the import of the Divine inquiry begins to dawn 
upon us. It implies that the individual head and repre- 
sentative of the race was in some way summoned to 
answer for this state of things, and account for this 
abandonment of his public mission, this silence, this 
disappearance from the public eye. 

" Where art thou? " What has become of the grand 
enterprise assigned thee ? 

To such an inquiry there could be, in the circum- 
stances supposed, but one answer. With perfect ingen- 
uousness the head of the race-elect, uninfected with 
guile, responds that he had feared to meet the Lord God, 
who had commissioned him, being defenseless against 
adverse criticism and unable to justify himself. He had 
nothing to do but to hide his head. But this necessarily 
brings on the next question, Whose judgment is that, 
that thou art inexcusable ? "Who told thee," &c. Is 
it thine own judgment, or that of the rival race thou 
wert commissioned to dethrone? Dost thou believe 
what they say ? Hast thou indeed yielded to the influ- 
ence of that mind against whom I warned thee ? 

" Hast thou eaten of the tree ? " Art thou indeed 
deceived to think he ought to continue in power ? 
Hast thou abandoned the attempt to reorganize the 
universe ? 

To this, the reply would be, (as shadowed forth by 
the emblems,) I find such a state of opinion, and feeling, 
and commitment on the part of my race, (" the woman 
whom thou gavest me,") that I cannot attack him. 
The moral force of my attack is broken by the course 
of my party, my adherents, my race. I am compelled 
to retreat ; to keep silent ; and to act as though I trusted 
him. The campaign is ended. I am defeated. I must 



100 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

consent to remain under the disgrace of having failed to 
execute thy commands, and in the false position of hav- 
ing tacitly indorsed his administration. 

The symbolization is here so managed as to suggest 
that the head of the race-elect had not in fact been 
deceived in the least, (" Adam was not deceived,") but 
yet, that in accounting for the catastrophe, so conducts 
his statement as to assume as much of the responsibility 
as he consistently can, and to throw as little blame on 
the race as possible. (" She gave me of the tree, and I 
did eat.") My race (or party) influenced me to discon- 
tinue the attack, and virtually to act as if I believed in 
him. 

And now the inquiry directs itself toward the race ; 
and in passing, let it be borne in mind that these brief 
questions and answers on the emblematic plane indicate 
processes on the higher plane that may have extended 
over considerable intervals of time, nay, from the nature 
of the transactions involved, must do so. 

The question next to be investigated is, what influ- 
ence the race has exerted upon its leader and head, to 
compel him to forego the enterprise, and thus place him 
in a false position before the Lord God ? (" What is 
this that thou hast done?") Appropriate methods are 
indicated to have been adopted to produce self-examina- 
tion, reflection, and a candid confession of the actual 
state of facts. As a result, the confession is extorted 
that they were convinced and persuaded by arguments 
and appeals of the ruling party, and did listen to their 
protestations, their professions, their promises. 

We did think them sincere ; we were influenced ; in 
spite of all warnings, we were over-persuaded, and did final- 
ly believe in him whom we had been forbidden to trust. 
We imbibed his ideas (ate of his fruit), and were per- 
vaded by his influence. He seemed to us so bright and 



THE EXAMINATION. 101 

fair, so honest and wise ; he had been so long at the 
summit of power ; honored and trusted by the Lord 
himself ; and he so solemnly claimed still to be God's 
vicegerent and revealing medium, that we were be- 
guiled, and gave him our allegiance. 

Here the examination stops. No question is asked of 
the serpent. The judicial process does not extend itself 
to him. It implies that no corresponding inquest was 
held on the celestial plane. No investigation is shadowed 
forth as having been set on foot. The reason is obvious. 
Triumphant parties do not usually investigate their own 
conduct. The party symbolized by the serpent, the 
cosmocratic party, was victorious, and victors are not 
ordinarily expected to apologize for victories. They 
were more firmly enthroned than ever, — it was no time 
to suggest an apology for reigning. 



102 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

SENTENCE ON THE SERPENT. 

The scrutiny being ended, the sentence follows. It 
is three-fold — first on the serpent, second on the woman, 
and third on the man. Continuing the method already 
laid down, we consider the transaction first on the natu- 
ral plane, as though it were a scene in actual life, or a 
scene in a drama, waiving for the moment all thought 
of an ulterior symbolic meaning : " And the Lord God 
said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this thou 
art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the 
field : upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou 
eat all the days of thy life. And I will put enmity be- 
tween thee and the woman, and between thy seed and 
her seed ; he shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise 
his heel." 

1. The serpent was " wise above all animals ; " it is now 
declared he shall be " cursed above all animals." This 
implies removal from one extreme of the animal scale to 
the other, as in school a pupil may be sent from the 
head of his class to the foot. 

2. The sentence is for cause ; " because thou hast 
done this." To this extent it is retrospective. 

3. In its execution, however, it is prospective. The 
expression, " on thy belly shalt thou go," has been 
thought by some to imply that up to the present mo- 
ment he was of a different form and movement from 
that of serpents as known to us. We see no objection 



SENTENCE ON THE SEEPENT. 103 

to such a supposition, though it is not material to our 
exposition. But in case we so conceived of it, we should 
also conceive that no change of form accompanied this 
denunciation. Nothing implies it. Dramatic congru- 
ity does not demand it. It is rather a prediction of a 
future change, which in that moment of victory might 
seem least credible. We should conceive of him as left 
master of the field, shut from our view within the 
garden, in that form, whatever it was, in which he 
conquered. The expression, "Dust shalt thou eat," 
may be accepted as one of the few figures of speech in 
the narrative. The serpent does not literally eat dust, 
but is as cleanly in his diet as other reptiles. It is a 
metaphor implying degradation. The serpent may be 
conceived of inside the garden in some form suggestive 
of superiority. Outside of the garden, as we see him, 
his attitude, prone and sinuous and silent, is suggestive 
of inferiority. 

4. The sentence is not only prospective, but it is to be 
the result of a prolonged conflict with the woman and 
her seed. Here the prospective nature of the curse is 
prominent. There is no woman's seed upon the stage. 
That conflict cannot even begin to be enacted within 
the Eden theater. . 

It does not say the serpent bruises, or shall bruise the 
woman's head. It does not say the woman's heel shall 
deliver the retaliatory stroke upon the serpent's head. 
All that is future, and pertains to the agency of a seed 
not yet apparent on the stage or behind the scenes. The 
woman at this moment, so far as the paradisaic stage is 
concerned, is hors de combat — defeated, on the point of 
being driven off the mimic field. The scene of war is to 
be wholly outside the gates of Paradise. 

Were the serpent described as undergoing some de- 
grading change of form within the garden, it would 



104 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

violate congruity by suggesting present defeat, where 
existed only present triumph. 

But if the serpent retain his pre-eminently intelligent 
form and bearing (whatever it may have been) while 
the prophetic eye looks out beyond the garden stage, 
and sees a form in some respects the same, yet in other 
respects different, the prediction of future defeat now 
apparently impossible, and through an agency not now 
existing, becomes most congruous and impressive. Thus 
far we deal with these agents on the natural plane — 
precisely as we would if exhibited in a tableau, or upon 
the theatric stage ; or as seen in a vision, or in a dream. 
It matters not how the action is effected. If a company 
of tragedians, or a class of amateur performers, or an 
ingenious set of mechanical automata, went through these 
parts, or if they occurred as simple historic realities, the 
significance would be the same, and the question, What 
is here symbolized ? would remain to be answered, not 
by fancy, but by the rigid rule of analogy. 

It is not the object of the present study to exhibit 
even an outline of the conflict here symbolically pre- 
dicted, and as thus far accomplished in human history. 1 
It is the true standpoint from which alone human history 
can be written, as will be seen when Christ opens the 
seals of the mighty scroll, and makes known to the 
universe its contents. 2 

The present design is necessarily restricted to a con- 
sideration of the crisis shadowed forth when this doom 
was spoken before the world began. We behold, then, 
the angelic powers and their chief (the celestial cos- 
mocracy) elate with victory, and confirmed in their 
immemorial rights of empire. The attempt to remove 

i A very brief and imperfect outline is attempted in the author's work, 
" Spiritual Manifestations," pp. 122-131. Lee & Shepard : Boston. 
2 Rev. iv. 5. 



SENTENCE ON THE SERPENT. 105 

them has failed. The rival race underlies an accusation 
they cannot answer. The very principles on which they 
were elected to the birthright now require their exile. 
Their adversary becomes the representative of justice, 
prepared to accuse them day and night before God. 
The}^ stand disgraced and on the point of expulsion. 
At that juncture the reality of which this is the shadow 
takes place in the celestial world. It is not of the nature 
of an impeachment, trial and dethronement of the cos- 
mocratic power. That has just been attempted, and the 
attempt has for the present broken down. It is of the 
nature of a prediction, pure and simple. To that bright 
and glorious and triumphant party, with that illustrious 
archangel at their head, the Lord proclaims a renewal 
of the conflict with the defeated race on a different 
battlefield, and under other auspices. In that conflict, 
though the leader of the now defeated party shall suffer 
severely, yet he shall be victorious at last, and the now 
triumphant organization be not only degraded and de- 
spised, but crushed never to rise again. To this extent 
it must be understood that there was a disclosure made 
to principalities and powers on high, of the scope of the 
divine plan. Of the details of that plan, the emblems 
do not imply that information was then given. Nor does 
the tableau indicate that the cosmocratic powers were 
subjected to any present limitation of dominion, or any 
prelibation of judgment. It was a warning — a doom — 
which they might or might not lay to heart. It would 
not dampen their exultation, nor humble their pride, nor 
predispose them to reform, except in proportion to the 
faith they exercised in the divine testimony of what they 
could not see, and what, in itself, might have seemed to 
the last degree improbable, if not impossible. 

Conceive those exalted powers, serene spectators of 
their rivals' disgraceful failure, to hear the Lord God 



106 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

say: "You have triumphed. Man goes out and goes 
down. You reign. But this very victory shall be your 
defeat. You have taken the first step in a series in 
which you will inevitably take the second, and every 
succeeding step will necessitate the following, and every 
step will bring you nearer and nearer to your final dis- 
grace before the moral universe. That victimized race 
shall yet reign over all worlds, while you, as a dominant 
race, possessing voice and vote in the affairs of empire, 
shall cease to exist." 



SENTENCE ON WOMAN. 107 



CHAPTER XIV. 

SENTENCE ON WOMAN. 

In the curse pronounced on the serpent, mention is 
made of the seed of the woman. As yet, however, she 
has no seed, and the representation has been designedly 
so managed as to indicate that the conditions of repro- 
duction are wanting. First we have the man alone, in 
a condition that is declared by the Lord to be " not 
good." Then, when a help-meet is provided, it is im- 
plied that, being minors, the sexual instinct is latent. 
Hence, the mention of seed, or offspring, is a surprise. 
It is and must be prospective. It relates to a part that 
cannot be enacted on the narrow stage of the garden, 
but must be exhibited outside. The fact foretold, then, 
in the sentence on woman, is the great increase of the 
Adamic family, notwithstanding great sorrows attendant 
upon maternity, resulting in part from the predicted 
enmity of the serpent. There is nothing in the narra- 
tive necessarily forbidding the idea of prehistoric races 
of men now extinct, or of contemporary races in other 
portions of the globe. On the contrary, there are several 
things here and there in the earlier parts of Genesis 
which have, in fact, suggested such a belief to different 
minds. The whole opening portion of Genesis adapts 
itself readily to such hypothesis. The Adamic family 
has, in fact, increased and multiplied, and it is in the 
line of descent from that pair that all worthy of the 
name of civil and religious history has unfolded. Spe- 



108 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

cialists in Ethnology, and in Glottology, may pursue 
their investigations back to pliocene origin, if facts lead 
them so far, without the least solicitude for Scripture. 
But they cannot wisely ignore Genesis, which is the 
best ancient record extant ; a record which all recent 
Oriental discoveries tend more and more to confirm. 
The fact on the temporal plane announced as future, is 
the great increase of a particular stock, or line, in the 
midst of and in spite of great sorrows. Viewed in this 
light, the sentence on woman is far from being what it 
has been sometimes incautiously denominated, a curse. 
It is, in reality, a blessing, though perhaps " a blessing 
in disguise." Sterility would have been a curse. Fer- 
tility was in fact the greatest of blessings, " and God 
blessed them, saying, Be fruitful and multiply," No 
curse is pronounced on the woman, or on her husband, 
but only on their enemy, and on the ground, which was 
to be the field of battle. And that ground was cursed, 
not in itself, but in being made the scene of such dire 
conflict. The earth has indeed been cursed by war, and 
a thousand battlefields of progress have been drenched 
with blood. But civil and religious liberty is a blessing 
none too dearly won, even at such cost. 

The question, then, is not merely what this sentence 
on woman foretells as future, on the extra-paradisaic 
stage ; but what it shadows forth respecting a past crisis, 
on a higher plane of being, of which the garden is the 
general emblem ? 

Does it imply that the celestial race elect, defeated, 
and on the point of exile, was still further humiliated in 
the face of a triumphant foe, by anything in the nature 
of a malediction ? Quite the reverse. Although not at 
the moment in those spiritual states in relation to Christ, 
which would qualify them to preside maternally over an 
endlessly increasing Universe, they are assured they 



SENTENCE ON WOMAN. 109 

shall become so, although by an ordeal involving multi- 
plied sorrows. In order to become spiritually his syrn- 
morph or counterpart, his other self, they must conform 
to him wonderfully, throughout the whole descending 
path of his humiliation, and as wonderfully throughout 
the whole ascending path of his glorification. They to 
him ; he to them. One complex Christ, they descend 
together (the infinitesimal element of time being ig- 
nored), they ascend together. And as the result of 
their earthly sorrows, it is announced to them, they 
shall become so true, unselfish, receptive of the divine, 
submissive, and inflamed with intense love to him, that 
the interrupted work of reorganizing the universe can 
be resumed and completed ; the suspended work of cre- 
ating new races of intelligent beings to be trained for 
happiness, shall go on under their maternal auspices 
forever. 

This, in short, is the point in the " programme of 
ages,' 1 1 where the race-elect, or Christ-race, were " pre- 
destined symmorphs of the image of his Son," 2 — a 
transaction so often implied in those wonderful com- 
pound words which are untranslatable, except at the 
expense of the volatile aroma of their sweetest signifi- 
cance. 

Adam, as he first stands upon the stage, 3 lies down in 
deep sleep single, and rises double ; lies down "not 
good," and rises " very good ; " lies down monomorphic, 
and rises bi-morphic. Even so the race or order sym- 
bolized, are with Christ jointly " lowered a while be- 
neath the angels," 4 in "a body of humiliation," 5 are 
44 joint sufferers," 6 " jointly crucified," 7 his death their 

1 Upddtatv tZv al&vwv. Eph. iii. 11. 5 ox5/i/a Trig TcnreivuxTewg. Phil. iii. 21. 

2 irpo&pice cvfjfidpipovs. Rom. viii. 29. 6 av^izau^o^v. Rom. viii. IT. 

3 iTaZuibs avdpu)iros. Eph iv. 22. 7 ovvtaTavpwfuu. Gal. ii. 20. 

4 rjX&TTiooas ai)Tdv ftpayb ti nap' dyyeXovg. Heb. ii. 7. 



110 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

death, 1 descend with Him to Hades, 2 jointly with Him 
vivified, 3 together raised, 4 together justified, 5 " built 
together into a temple," 6 " jointly enthroned," 7 and 
jointly glorified, 8 in supreme dominion over the uni- 
verse. We see it not yet done in detail to the mem- 
bers, but we see it virtually done in the child of the 
race. We see not the universe as yet subjected to the 
race, but we do see " the temporarily-sub-angel-lowered- 
Jesus " 9 crowned with glory and honor. 

This is that eternal life " which God, who cannot lie, 
promised before the world began," 10 to the defeated, 
humiliated, despairing, heart-broken race, on the vergfc 
of age-long exile. This the moment when he " blessed 
us (as existing and present realities) with all spiritual 
blessings in heaven, in Christ." n 

1 ansdavofjLiv obv ypiirrct). Rom. vi. 8. 6 ovvoiKodoneTadf, cvvapfxoXoyovnivr), 

2 oi) KaTelei(pOr] f) ^x 71 a ^ T0 " ft 'f <i'<5oo. Eph. ii. 21, 22. 

Acts ii. 31 ; 1 Pet. iii. 18. 7 owe/cMitm. Eph. ii. 6. 

3 ctvve^uiOTtoiriat, Eph. ii. 5. 8 avvholaaB&nev. Rom. viii. 17. Com- 
* avvfiyeipe. Eph. ii. 6. pare Rev. iii. 21. 

i6iKaiwdn ivirvsiifj-ari. 1 Tim. iii. 16. 9 rokj3pa^(; n -nap ayyiXovg rjXXarroi' 

rjylpdt] did rfiv ducaimoiv fjixOtv, ixivov 'Irjaovv. Heb. ii. 9. 

Rom. iv. 25. 10 Titus i. 2. 

H "There are a few texts in the New Testament, more especially in St. 
Paul's epistles, that seem to point to the deepest and uttermost secrets of crea- 
tion. Often half isolated from the argument, emerging suddenly from a more 
restricted context, gathering up what has seemed specific into declarations 
most comprehensive and general, they reveal to the reader such far-reaching 
issues, and such retrospective economies, that the immediate occasion, the un- 
folding argument or the applied exhortation, seems lost and forgotten in the 
majesty of the incidental revelation. All we feel conscious of, is seeing along 
a vista into the past or the future so marvelous and so divine, that all life 
seems in an instant to acquire a deeper meaning, all the mystery of being a 
fresh significance. The perplexed thoughts of weary years assume a sudden 
order and coherence, the long looked-for is at last fully seen, the long searched- 
for is at last found." — Ellicott, " Destiny of the Creature " — Exordium. 



SENTENCE ON MAN. Ill 



CHAPTER XV. 

SENTENCE ON MAN. 

The sentence on the Man next demands attention : 

" And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast heark- 
ened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the 
tree of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not 
eat of it ; cursed is the ground for thy sake ; in sorrow 
shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns also 
and thistles shall it bring forth to thee ; and thou shalt 
eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy face shalt 
thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground ; for out 
of it wast thou taken ; for dust thou art, and unto dust 
shalt thou return." 

In compliance with the method hitherto pursued, we 
are first to consider this on the natural plane. The first 
point that arrests attention is, in a dramatic point of 
view, worthy of special notice. 

" Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy 
wife." 

1. The reason for the sentence might have been phrased 
differently. It might have run thus : " Because thou 
hast hearkened to the voice of the Serpent ; " or, " Be- 
cause thou hast plucked the fruit of the tree I forbade 
thee, and eaten it ; " or, " Because ye have plucked and 
eaten." The point to which special attention should be 
given, is the prominence assigned to the Woman's in- 
fluence. Dramatically this is equivalent to saying, What 
you are to suffer, you will suffer for her sake, or on her 



112 THE EDEN TABLEAU, 

account. For "Adam was not deceived, but the woman 
being deceived was ill the transgression." * It is deli- 
cately implied, so far as signs can do it, that the "trans- 
gression " is hers, not his, 

2. No curse is pronounced upon him. This would be 
contrary to the plan of the drama, and contrary to con- 
gruity. They are a defeated pair ; they are on the verge 
of expulsion ; their antagonist is left apparent master of 
the field ; yet in the hour of triumph that antagonist is 
cursed, while a future conflict and victory are promised 
to the Woman's seed. Now it would be out of keeping 
to curse either her or her husband. The promise of 
numerous offspring just made to her, is a promise to him 
as her husband ; her predicated subjection is his predi- 
cated pre-eminence. It is therefore equivalent to saying 
to him, You have assumed responsibility for her acts, and 
through her seed you go forth to subdue the earth — but 
you will suffer in so doing. 

3. The curse is pronounced on the extra-paradisaic 
ground. The prophetic eye looks out of the garden 
precinct upon the surrounding region, and sees briers 
and thorns. Not that an alteration was effected on the 
climate or soil. The earth was created expressly to be 
a battlefield, from the lowest primordial strata. No ex- 
isting law was now repealed, no new law instituted. Now 
first the existing state of the outside earth is recognized 
and its effects upon man as its subduer by husbandry an- 
nounced, viz., painful and often unrequited toil, result- 
ing in the wearing out and final dissolution of the body 
no longer perfectly nourished and medicated by the tree 
of life. 

4. One other point should be taken in close connec- 
tion with this sentence, and that is the naming of Wo- 
man. Adam had, in a previous scene, named all the 

i 1 Tim. ii. 14. 



SENTENCE ON MAN. 113 

animals in token of sovereignty. He had also, in a sub- 
sequent scene, given to woman a generic name, Isha, the 
feminine form of Ish, — a name of the sex rather than of 
the individual. Now, however, the sentence upon him- 
self and upon her having been spoken, involving mutual 
relations of dependence and responsibility, relations im- 
plying the necessity on both sides of the most disinter- 
ested and unselfish devotion, but especially on his, we 
see him turn to her and utter the word " Eve ! " 

The sentence has indicated a certain subordination on 
her part, a certain responsibility on his — " he shall rule 
over thee ! " — he accepts the trust, and in sign thereof 
bestows on her a new name. The sentence has denoted 
her sorrows, and her fecundity, which to a true, loving 
husband must be joint sorrows and joint fruitfulness. 
He accepts the partnership, virtually saying by that 
beautiful word " Eve," " Live thou, and be thou the 
mother of all living ! " 

Such are the emblems on the natural plane, in so far 
as we have been able to detach the mind from their sym- 
bolic significance. And this, in passing be it observed, 
is no easy thing. The symbols are so eloquent, the anal- 
ogy so strong, and conventional usage, mauger its in- 
consistency, so habitual, that it is no easy task to see the 
play as a play ; — as if really enacted before us on the 
historic or on the theatric stage. 

What, then, is the import of these emblems, by the 
law of analogy ? All these particulars are emblematic, 
both those accompanying the sentence, and those fore- 
told by it. The sentence predicts an emblematic part 
that could not be exhibited within the garden theater, 
and which must therefore be enacted on the outer world- 
wide stage, — a part running parallel to, and involved 
in, that predicted enmity between the two seeds. And 
as woman is an emblem now, as really as she was in the 
8 



114 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

garden, so man is an emblem now, and the emblematic 
tragedy is in full course upon the great world-stage. And 
the fact foretold is, immense and uninterrupted toil — 
with apparently little result. 

It is not our object to trace out the fulfillment of that 
prediction in detail. The rise and fall of nations ; the 
waste of energy — physical, intellectual, and moral — 
b}^ war, by intemperance, by crime ; the age-long strug- 
gle for liberty, and good government, and happy social 
order, ending in despotism and division, and social dis- 
integration and anarchy ; the waste of intellect in war, 
wrestlings with problems of philosophy, theology, and 
science ; the weariness and exhaustion of the body 
politic in its ceaseless struggles age after age, — the 
theme is too vast to be attempted here. 

The point at present to be considered, is the crisis on 
the higher, empyreal plane, when the prophetic utter- 
ance was made. The defeated race was about to go 
forth into exile. What is it that the Eternal is sym- 
bolized as predicting to the race's head ? 

It is this : Thou hast assumed the responsibility of thy 
race's past, and of its future. On account of their fault 
thou hast failed to reorganize the government, and hast 
remained practically subject to him thou wert appointed 
to displace. Thou hast chosen to share thy race's des- 
tiny, their disgrace, their exile, in order finally to crush 
the head of the now triumphant angelic organization. 
Go ; but count the cost. It is no easy task. It will 
cost the whole universe dear (the whole creation shall 
groan and travail together in pain), but thee especially 
as the one mind and heart on whose fortitude the uni- 
verse is staked. 

The poverty of the poor shall be thy poverty, the 
sickness and captivity, the hunger and thirst of thy 
brethren, shall be thy sickness, and captivity, and hun- 



SENTENCE ON MAN. 115 

ger, and thirst. The guilt and shame of their miscon- 
duct shall be laid at thy door. The bread of life for 
thyself and for thy race, shall be earned by the sweat 
of thy brow, and that sweat — " great drops of blood." 
The crown of glory that fadeth not away thou shalt win 
for thy race ; thou must first wear thyself a crown of 
thorns ! Thy field is the world, but thorns and briers 
shall it yield to thee. Deep lies thy precious pearl 
therein ; thou must sell all thou hast to buy it. Earth 
will be one wide grave-yard for thy loved ones. Into 
that grave-yard thou must descend. Thy soul shall be 
exceeding sorrowful, even unto death.. They must con- 
form to thee, but thou must first conform to them. 
Such is the part thou hast chosen in hearkening unto 
the voice of thy wife. Consider it well. Thou hast set 
before thee the joy of their final coronation ; behold also 
the cross and shame which confront thee a£ every step 
of thy way between ! 

Thus challenged, as it were, by the divine prediction, 
whether to abandon his race to their fate, or share that 
fate, the heavenly bridegroom turns to his affianced in 
the crisis of her most exquisite anguish and shame, and 
says, " Live,, yea, live, and be the motherly source of life 
to the universe for ever." He assumes the husband's 
rights and rule. He gives her a " new name ; " 1 the 
heavenly Eve, " name of the city of my God ; " 2 " Jeru- 
salem above, the mother of us all." 3 

i Rev. ii. 17. 2 Rev. iii. 12. 3 Gal. iv. 26. 



116 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

COATS OF SKINS. 

Immediately preceding the expulsion, and forming 
the last scene of the intra-paradisaic drama, is the act of 
providing Adam and Eve with clothing. 

" Unto Adam, also, and to his wife, did the Lord God 
make coats of skins, and clothed them." 

If Eden was in the highlands of Armenia, this was 
an eminent necessity. They could well remain without 
clothing for a short time, for a summer's day or two, 
just long enough to enact a symbolic part ; but for 
the actual realities of extra-paradisaic life, in a climate 
where the rigors of winter are to be encountered, they 
must be well protected. Yet, in the act of providing 
that necessary covering, in the time and manner of doing 
it, there was a symbolic meaning. 

Our method, as in previous chapters, is to take the 
narrative at its face, and conceive of the facts as de- 
scribed. There is nothing in the description to show 
what animals were taken for this purpose. We can 
picture Adam in the spotted skin of the leopard, or in 
the grim and shaggy hide of the bear, or in the fleecy 
robe of the lamb, so far as this brief verse is concerned. 
If the object was to suggest an almost brutal origin, an 
emergence through savagery into civilization, then the 
spoils of the chase might be in keeping. But if, as the 
entire plot of the drama seems to imply, it is civilized 
man who is brought upon the stage, in studied contrast 



COATS OF SKINS. 117 

to savage man, heralding the dawn of civil and religious 
development, then such a costume would be incongruous, 
and that of the pastor, the husbandman, the tiller of the 
soil, is more in keeping. 

Before his appearance " there was not a man to till 
the ground." He was placed in the garden to dress it 
and keep it, and the animals were given to him in pos- 
session. When the curtain falls, he is shut out, " to till 
the ground from which he was taken." His eldest son 
is " a tiller of the ground," and his brother, a shepherd. 
The design is apparent to indicate a settled agricultural 
and pastoral life. It is in better keeping with this to 
conceive him dressed in fleecy garments, such being soft 
and flexible, and well suited to the purpose. 

Conceive it thus, then : The fairest, whitest, gentlest, 
most perfect of those animals Adam had named as his 
own, — which already he had begun to be fond of, — his 
favorites, his pets — (let us imagine the tragic scene !) — 
are slain before his eyes ; and their covering becomes his 
covering. What is this, in a tableau, but to say in dumb 
show — that it is he who has been slain? Consistency 
required that he that day should die. "In the day thou 
eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" Yet his part in the 
drama was still incomplete. He must be driven out. 
In such cases, in scenic representations, resort is had to 
a doubling of emblems. Thus the two goats on the 
great day of atonement, one of whom carries the sym- 
bolic part on to the point where he is slain, and there 
the other sprinkled with the blood of its mate, to inti- 
mate that he is acting the same part after death, takes 
it up and is sent out into the wilderness. 1 

The plot of the drama demands that Adam (and he 
called their name Adam) should die. Conventionalism 

1 Lev. xvi. See Redeemer and Redeemed, pp. 65-74. Lee & Shepard: 
Boston. 



118 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

has been at a loss to account for it that he did not die. 
But dramatic congruity asserts that he did die. The 
lamb dies, its robe is transferred to Adam, and scenically 
it is he who has died. 

Thus far we have confined our attention strictly to 
the natural plane ; putting nothing in which the narra- 
tive does not contain or imply, and leaving nothing out, 
and resisting as far as in our power the admission of the 
higher meanings analogically shadowed forth. We now 
ask, What are those meanings ? 

And here we call attention to the fact, that the law 
by which white becomes the emblem of purity, is as 
truly a law of Nature, as is the attraction of gravity. 
It is as much a law of matter as of mind, because it is 
based on the correlation of both. It is not in any degree 
artificial or subjective, or fanciful, or visionary, or volun- 
tary. The whole world might legislate a spotless lamb 
to be the symbol of a guileful, ferocious tyrant, in vain. 
It would not be so. And when, in later scriptures, Christ 
is spoken of as the lamb slain from the foundation of the 
world, we feel that we cannot be mistaken in the refer- 
ence. In this feeling, Christians of all communions, 
Roman, Greek, and Protestant, sympathize, with a unity 
more grand on account of the diversity existing on other 
points. 

It still remains, however, to develop the meaning of 
the reference. That it is prophetic, is evident ; but 
from what standpoint is it prophetic ? To meet this in- 
quiry we must ascend to celestial altitudes, and look 
forth from a standpoint in the remote past, even before 
the foundation of the world. 

There we behold the race-elect to eternal dominion, 
defeated, disgraced, and on the point of exile. The 
failure to remove from power the bright original Head 
of created empire, has for the present apparently immeas- 



COATS OF SKINS. 119 

urably strengthened his ascendency over the public sen- 
timent of the moral universe. 

He continues to be, in the view of myriads, as he 
originally was, the embodiment of the divine; "his heart 
is as the heart of God ; " his holiness is the divine holi- 
ness ; his justice is divine justice ; his severity is divine 
severity. And the spirit which he breathes through the 
myriads of his admirers is believed by himself, and by 
them, to be in reality the spirit of infinite justice. 

But it is the instinctive tendency of party-spirit in ourj 
day to go to extremes in magnifying the faults of rivals ; 
and our day, and the day before the world began, though 
separated by geologic cycles, are one, the whole lapse of 
ages is but an infinitesimal of eternity. The contro- 
versy is identical, the forms only change from world to 
world and age to age. The cosmocratic chief was not 
exempt from this tendency. There was an element of 
truth in his charges against the defeated race. They 
had rendered themselves liable to the sweep of the di- 
vine objections. They had fallen into the very faults 
and corruptions they were appointed to correct. But 
he exaggerated their faults. He blackened every linea- 
ment. He would admit no palliation, no justification, 
past or future. He thus established the character of 
" accuser of the brethren." For these culprits were 
his brethren, younger, less experienced than himself, 
and were entitled to his compassion. 

But partisanship seldom knows compassion ; he so in- 
tensified accusation as to outrun truth. He thus became 
a slanderer. There is no slander more criminal or more 
common than that which is partially or wholly conscien- 
tious, and supposed to be dedicated to the support of 
justice — the slander of a political or theological opponent. 
Men, in the very focus of gospel light, sometimes breathe 
an atmosphere of slander without seeming to be conscious 



120 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

of it. When Christ would indicate the character of the 
great cosmocratic chief, prince of this world, he did not 
select publican and harlot as his nearest resemblance; he 
selected those who were, in their own estimation, the 
holiest men in all Palestine, the intensest in their legal 
justice and unsparing condemnation of the guilty, and 
said, Ye are his likenesses. Ye are slanderers, and so 
was he. As he did, so you are doing. 

Now against excessive charges (and to the extent that 
they are excessive are they slanderous) there may be a 
justification. A man may be far from sinless, yet he may 
be innocent of a slanderous charge. A political party, or 
a church, may be blameworthy, and yet may justly re- 
sent the wholesale accusations of an enemy as slanderous. 

Conceive something of this nature on the higher plane. 
Guilty as the defeated race-elect might be, they were 
calumniated, slandered ; they needed a present justi- 
fication — the prelibation and pledge of an eternal justi- 
fication. 

That justification their chief could give. Personally 
he was spotless, and all the odium that attached to him 
was from his advocacy of an unpopular cause. 

Himself he could defend ; but he must stem the tor- 
rent of influence against his race. In so doing, he denied 
the justice of the charge against them, in so far as it was 
carried to an excess, as slanderous ; and even while con- 
ceding their faults, he pronounced those faults pardon- 
able. There was then a qualified justification, even on 
the threshold of exile ; and a prophetic justification in 
the future, of which the white raiment was the appro- 
priate emblem, " for the white raiment is the righteous- 
ness of the saints." There was a promise to effect, 
through succeeding ages of conflict (at a cost to himself 
faintly shadowed by the death of that lamb), a thorough 
vindication. He would demonstrate the essential in- 



COATS OF SKINS. 121 

justice of that justice that claimed to be divine while 
it was implacable, and show the venial nature of his 
people's fault (if repented of and confessed) compared 
with the criminality charged. 

Such an undertaking he well knew would cost time, 
and trouble, and suffering of every conceivable kind, far 
beyond what, could be condensed into the few brief years 
of his earthly history, and brought to a climax at its 
close. He foresaw and accepted it all, and in so doing 
virtually laid down his life. 

He was " the lamb slain from the foundation of the 
world ; " "a lamb without blemish and without spot," 
each drop of whose blood was most precious. He was 
not merely sinless, but peculiarly dear and lovely in his 
native home ; the favorite, the darling of the celestial 
tent, — as he shows in a moment of thrilling reminiscence 
just before his passion, when he exclaims, " Father, I 
will that they also whom thou hast given me be with 
me where I am, that they may behold my glory which 
thou hast given me, for thou lovedst me before the foun- 
dation of the world ! " 1 

1 John xvii. 24. 



122 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 



. CHAPTER XVII. 

CURTAIN FALLS. 

The closing scene of the intra-paradisiacal drama aiv 
rives. We listen to a colloquy among the Elohim. One 
of the immortals addresses the other. A reason is &s- 
signed for the act which is about to be performed, and 
the act immediately follows. 

This reason is remarkable both for what it says and 
for what it does not say. It does not say because the 
man has been deceived, nor because he has failed in a 
slight test of obedience ; in fact, it does not say because 
he has done anything, but because he has become some- 
thing ; and that something, in itself considered, one would 
suppose a very good thing, viz., he has become like one 
of the Elohim, to know good and evil. Conventionalism 
says there is irony here; but dramatic congruity for- 
bids the supposition. It is an effect good in itself, 
but bad in time and manner. It is a precocious ma- 
turity. 

This is one cause of the impending act. Another is, 
" lest he take also of the tree of life, and eat and live for- 
ever." That is, lest he continue to eat of this tree. The 
plot of the drama contrasted the two trees. They might 
eat of one, but not of both. Having experienced the 
stimulus of the prohibited tree, consistency demands 
that he be debarred from the other. Dramatic truth 
demanded that on that day he should die. Emblemati- 



CURTAIN FALLS. 123 

cally, he has died. He stands " as having been slain." 1 
It would be incongruous, even contradictory, to allow 
him continued access to a fruit that negatived the pos- 
sibility of death, present or future. Therefore he must 
go forth. Such is the reason assigned. 

Now follows the act; and this is described in two 
phrases : " He sent him forth to till the ground, from 
which he was taken ; " and, " He drove out the man." 
The first word, " sent," is noticeable as being adapted 
both to the idea of sending on a mission to perform 
some appointed work (as here to till the soil), and also 
the idea of expulsion, — as, for instance, where Israel is 
said to be cast out of God's sight, or put away, or divorced 
from Jehovah. 2 

The other word, " drove out," is more emphatic, its 
primary meaning being expulsion, and not, as in the 
other case, sending on a mission. It also is used of 
divorcing a wife, or, in a hostile manner, driving out a 
nation. He is driven out, and he is sent out. It is an 
expulsion involving a certain suggestion of disgrace, and 
of hostility ; and it is also a mission : he is sent to do 
something — a task most difficult, most disappointing, 
yet a real work of greatest importance, viz. : 
• He sent him forth to till the ground. 

We now proceed to inquire the analogical import of 
these emblems. Taking them in the reverse order, we 
observe that, if Eden be considered as an emblem of 
Heaven generally, the garden may be regarded as denot- 
ing a more central interior, or a higher heaven. 

Christ says, " In my Father's house are many man- 
sions." 3 Paul speaks of being " caught up to the third 
heaven." 4 Christ is said to have ascended up above all 
the heavens. 5 This analogy of inner and outer, upper 

1 wj hcpayixivov. Rev. iv. 6. 2 1 Kings ix. 7 ; Isa. 1. 1 ; Deut. xxi. 14. 

3 John xiv. 2. 4 2 Cor. xii. 2. 

5 Eph. iv. 10. hnepavw itaviuv tu>v ovpavSv. 



124 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

and lower, is at the foundation of what we may call the 
emblematic system or object-teaching system of Scrip- 
ture. 

If then the within the garden denote a certain pre- 
eminence in the celestial world, the without will denote 
a less degree of pre-eminence ; the former more metro- 
politan, the latter more suburban or rural. 

Eden land, oh the lofty plateau of Armenia, as con- 
trasted with the lowlands of Babylon, may serve well as 
a general image of the celestial regions, as compared with 
earth. 

Hence, when we see Adam fashioned in Eden, we may 
regard him as the emblem of a celestial race — although, 
in some sense, in a humbler sphere — as befits a junior 
race. And when we see Adam carried into that garden, 
made supreme over animals formed earlier than himself, 
we seem to see that junior race summoned from their 
lowlier sphere, to metropolitan supremacy over races 
older, and naturally wiser than themselves. 

Hence, when we see the emblematic pair driven out 
into the Eden precinct, we seem to see the defeated 
race-elect excluded from that higher, more metropolitan 
seat of power, to their lower native heaven. 

Our ideas of heaven must of necessity be relative and 
analogical, yet something of this nature seems indicated. 
We are obliged, by our constitution, to think in the con- 
ditions of time and space. If the race was celestially 
pre-existent, if it was excluded from the highest heaven, 
it must have had some location ; at least, in our thought, 
we must give it a local habitation and a name. That 
location was not infernal, but supernal. It was still, 
compared with earth, a celestial mode of existence. If 
any choose to think that it was the aerial regions of this 
planet, the terrestrial heavens, and if they can so most 
conveniently order their thoughts, so be it. The point 



CURTAIN FALLS. 125 

to be insisted upon is the general analogy above out- 
lined. Be it also suggested that whatever Heaven will 
be in the future (mutatis mutandis), that heaven was in 
the past. Whatever readmission to the paradisaic em- 
blematic scene, and the tree of life implies that inversely 
exclusion from the same implies. The objective anti- 
typical reality regained, is the objective reality lost. 

Such, then, is the import of the act. Look, now, at the 
reason. The race are excluded from the metropolitan 
seat of empire, because they have become Godlike ; 
and that in what would seem to be a most honorable 
point of resemblance, viz., knowledge of good and evil, 
apparently a reason for keeping them in Heaven, rather 
than for driving them out. It is impossible to assign a 
meaning to this symbolization which shall possess dignity 
and congruity, without admitting the conception of a 
premature assumption, on their part, of a judicial dis- 
crimination of good and evil, which is the proper and 
peculiar function of the Elohim, and of such as are the 
authorized representatives of the Elohim. It is in itself 
a great and noble function, but one of great difficulty, 
and demanding special qualities of self-control, humility, 
and truth ; qualities not to be attained without an ordeal. 
It is not in those essential qualities that they have be- 
come like the Elohim, but it is in the attempted exer- 
cise of those exalted functions, without those qualities, 
or, at least, without the ordeal necessary to test and con- 
firm them. Therefore they must go forth to renew, 
under enhanced difficulties and sufferings, the needed 
ordeal. Hence the mingling of the ideas of driving out 
and sending out. The race as a whole is driven out, 
their head is sent. For the guilty defeated race as a 
whole it was an expulsion, for their head a mission. 

Yet even for the race itself it was to become also a 
mission by their conformity to their head. Their sorrows 



126 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

and sufferings were to be more and more like his — more 
and more the complement of his, as they should learn to 
" know the fellowship of his sufferings being made con- 
formable to his death." l So he was to teach them " to 
love one another, even as I have loved you." 2 So they 
were to learn with Paul to " fill up that which is behind 
of the afflictions of Christ for his body's sake, which is 
the church." 3 So that when they " loved not their lives 
unto the death," 4 the blood which they shed was still 
the blood of the Lamb ; and " they overcame the dragon 
foe by the blood of the Lamb." 4 For they are " mem- 
bers of his body, and of his flesh, and of his bones," 5 and 
their blood is still his blood. So that in this approximate 
sense, all their suffering is, like his, vicarious, and their 
whole life a mission. » " As thou hast sent me into the 
world, even so have I sent them into the world."- 6 

Such is the lesson we learn, as gazing back through 
the ages, through the shadows and mists of time, we see 
emerging from the eastern portals of the garden the 
exiled pair. Behind them is left, concealed from human 
view, the tree of life, and its contrasted tree, still flour- 
ishing in the central soil ; behind them remains the ser- 
pent, the wisest of all the beasts of the field whom the 
Lord God had made ; behind them falls the cherubic 
veil, never to be rent in twain from top to bottom till 
the expiring and expiating cry goes up — 

"It is finished ! " 

i Phil. iii. 10. » Col. i. 24. 5 Eph. v. 30. 

2 John xv. 12. 4 Rev. xii. 11. 6 John xvii, 18. 



THE EDEN TABERNACLE. 127 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE EDEN TABERNACLE. 

The first event outside the garden is closely con- 
nected with the last event inside. It is like a new 
act in a drama. After the fall of the curtain there is a 
shifting of scenes, the curtain rises, and we see the gates 
of paradise and grounds outside. But the most striking 
feature of the entire drama is, that man is outside and 
his enemy inside, — man has been " driven out" — his 
enemy has remained behind, having witnessed his ex- 
pulsion. Nothing can be conceived, then, more signifi- 
cant than the next fact recorded, viz., the placing the 
cherubim and the flaming sword. 

But in order to comprehend its significance, we first 
ask, What is this fact ? What do we see with the 
mind's eye ? What is described ? In a description so 
concise, a single picture word may speak volumes. Such 
a word is yashken, " he placed." It means, he placed in 
a tabernacle ; and when we remember that Moses, who 
wrote this sentence, had himself done that very thing 
for Israel in the wilderness, we realize what a wealth of 
meaning he would throw into that paragraph. 

" He tabernacled the cherubim on the east of 
the garden of Eden." 

It requires no very profound knowledge of Hebrew 
to judge of the correctness of this rendering. Any per- 
son who, with the aid of a Hebrew lexicon, can spell 
out a Hebrew verse, can easily satisfy himself ; and he 



128 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

who has only the English version, can judge of the testi- 
mony of competent scholars on a point so simple, and 
his judgment may be about as good as though he were 
a Hebrew scholar himself. 

Let the reader, then, examine the following testi- 
monies on this interesting point: 

Pakkhurst. 

" The word yashken expresses that there was a taber- 
nacle resembling the Mosaic, in which the cherubim 
were placed. . . . The cherubim are spoken of as figures 
well known, and no wonder, since they had always been 
among believers, in the holy tabernacle from the be- 
ginning." 1 

Lange. 

" Moses describes the placing of the cherubim in 
words suggested by that he had to carve in the taber- 
nacle ; yashken, he " made to dwell," — a term specially 
belonging to the -dwelling of the glory of God in the 
Shekinah, or cloud of glory ; and the paradisiacal cheru- 
bim were to keep, literally to guard, the way to the tree 
of life, as the cherubim in the tabernacle guarded the 
ark of the covenant." 2 

Candlish. 

" The cherubim surely marked the place in which the 
Lord revealed himself. . . . That there was in the primi- 
tive worship a holy place where the presence of the 
Lord was manifested, is plain from the fact that 4 Cain 
brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the 
Lord ; ' and subsequently ' went out from the presence 
of the Lord.' And it would seem that this primitive 

1 Parkhurst's Hebrew Lexicon. 

2 Bishop of Ely. Quoted in Lange on Genesis. 



THE EDEN TABERNACLE. 129 

holy place was substantially identical with, the sanctuary 
and shrine of the Levitical ritual." * 

Gerlach. 

" The object was that man might ever be reminded 
that he once had really been in the garden. The 
whole narrative partakes that character of addressing 
the senses as in speaking to children. The simple 
historical sense nowhere presents any essential diffi- 
culty." 2 

Faber. 

" Now the force of the original Hebrew is, that God 
placed those cherubim in a tabernacle. We are taught 
that the sacred garden is a type of Heaven, and that 
Heaven was no less typified by the Holy of holies in the 
Levitical tabernacle. Now the cherubim under the law 
were placed in the Holy of holies, directly fronting the 
entrance, and guarding (as it were) the approach to 
the consecrated adytum, just as the cherubim under the 
patriarchal dispensation were placed at the edge of 
paradise, guarding the avenue which led to the tree of 
life. In both cases, therefore, the cherubim have the 
very same relative position ; for in both cases they 
directly front the person who might wish to penetrate 
into the recesses of that which shadowed out the heaven 
of heavens. In both cases, too, we find them in a con- 
secrated tabernacle ; and as no hint is given that the 
paradisiacal cherubim were ever withdrawn before the 
flood, and as the same reason which first caused them to 
be stationed before the garden still subsisted until the 
deluge, we have ample ground for concluding that their 
manifestation was not temporary but permanent. If, 

1 Candlish on Genesis. 2 Gerlach on Genesis. 

9 



130 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

then, we put these several points of coincidence together; 
the cherubim themselves, the tabernacle in which they 
were stationed, their position at the entrance of that 
which symbolized heaven, and their apparent perma- 
nence in that position ; it is almost impossible to avoid 
concluding that they were not more characteristic of the 
Levitical dispensation than of the patriarchal before the 
deluge, . . . and that they bore the same relation to 
the stated worship of patriarchism as the cherubim of 
the Levitical tabernacle did to the stated worship of the 
Law." i 

Fairbairn. 

" It was precisely through the cherubim of glory that 
his mercy found expression to those who came to worship 
before him on the east of Eden, as it did also with some 
variation, and with fuller accompaniments in the most 
holy place in the tabernacle. So that, standing before 
the eastern approach to Eden, and scanning with intelli- 
gence the appearance there presented to his view, the 
child of faith might say to himself, That region of life is 
not finally lost to me. . . . My nature ... is destined to 
rise again, and enjoy in reality what is there ideally and 
representatively assigned to it." 2 

Book of Wisdom. 

That this view was very ancient appears from the 
Book of Wisdom, which represents Solomon as saying, 
" Thou hast commanded me to build a temple upon thy 
holy mount, and an altar in the city where thou dwellest, 
a resemblance of the holy tabernacle which thou pre- 
paredst from the beginning." 3 



i Horace Mosaicse, B. II. Sec. I. Chap. I. 

2 Imperial Bible Dictionary. Fairbairn. 

3 Wisd. ix. 8. Note the words pipyr/na dKijvrjs ayiag tjv TrpotjTolixacas air' dp^tjf. 



THE EDEN TABERNACLE. 131 

Wordsworth. * 
The cherubim were stationed there "to protect the 
way of the tree of life ; that is, to defend it against all 
enemies, especially against the powers of darkness who 
would destroy life." * 

Alford. 

"The placing of the cherubim on the east of Eden 
was indicative of ordinances of worship, and a form of 
access to the divine presence still open to man, though 
he was debarred from paradise. It was a provision of 
access, as well as an ordinance of exclusion." 

Bush. 

" The word yashken, fc placed,' is the root of Sheki- 
nah, ' a dwelling or tabernacling ; ' and the design was, 
not only to keep man from re-entering the garden, but 
to serve as a striking symbol, the same as in the Leviti- 
cal tabernacle." 2 

With these testimonies before us, the question re- 
turns, What is the fact described on the natural plane, 
apart wholly from its emblematic import ? What is the 
thing done ? What do we see ? We see a tabernacle, 
and in that tabernacle the cherubim are made to dwell. 
Deferring to the- next chapter the consideration of the 
cherubim, we concentrate attention upon the fact of a 
tabernacle. 

The thought naturally arises, Was not this tabernacle 
essentially like that afterwards constructed by Moses ; or 
at least, was it not a consistent element of an object- 
teaching system ? In Chapter III. we have seen what 
a divinely ingenious contrivance the Mosaic panorama 

1 Commentary on Genesis. 2 Bush's Commentary on Genesis. 



132 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

was. We now ask, Was not this practically the same — 
simpler, perhaps — less complex ; a rough draft ; an 
outline sketch of fewer strokes; but evidently the 
model, the pattern, of which that was but the ex- 
pansion ? 

Is there not here, in the Eden pageant, at least the 
germ of the same arrangement, with the same under- 
lying idea, nearness of the divine presence in space, 
separation only by sin ? Not to press the correspondence 
too minutely — have we not in the garden itself, or that 
portion of it where the cherubim were, something akin 
to the Holy of holies, and in the tabernacle outside, the 
counterpart of the first apartment or holy place ? And 
may not the Eden plateau answer to the court, and the 
lowland plains far, far away, to the quadrangular en- 
campment of the tribes ? 

The two systems of emblems, though not exactly 
identical in detail, seem fashioned upon the same general 
plan. And that idea here is an idea of exclusion, with 
a faint suggestion of possible return, were it not for the 
existence in the inmost adytum of an influence hostile — 
an accusing influence — wielding the justice of God as 
the fatal weapon of exclusion. 

A similar idea meets us in the later scheme — since 
none might enter the inmost cherubic recess, on pain of 
death, save one, and he only once in the year — and 
then with blood. 

Now, if the idea was to suggest that to make man's 
return possible, that hostile element must be expelled ; 
and that this would be accompanied with danger, nay, 
even with loss of life, would not such an arrangement 
be skillfully adapted to that end ? But what construc- 
tion does the apostolic interpreter put upon this ar- 
rangement ? 

" It was necessary that the emblems of things in 



THE EDEN TABERNACLE. 133 

heaven (iirodsiyfiuTa) should be purified with the 
blood of bulls and goats ; but the heavenly thiDgs 
themselves with better sacrifices. For Christ is not 
entered into holy places made with hands, but into 
heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God 
for us." i 

And it is his appearance there with his own precious 
blood, which in later visions is the signal for the 
expulsion of the foe, on which the shout breaks forth, 
" The accuser of our brethren is cast down, who accused 
them before our God day and night." 2 

» Heb. ix. 23. 2 Rev. xii. 



134 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



THE CHERUBIM. 



The Cherubim, it is conceived, were essentially the 
same emblem, at the gates of Paradise, in the tabernacle 
of Moses, the temple of Solomon, and in the visions of 
Isaiah, Ezekiel, and John ; a prominent feature of the 
grand object-teaching system of the Bible. To interpret 
them, we must first see them with the mind's eye. To 
see them, we must use the descriptions given us as a 
glass through which to look. 

The conceptions formed while reading the visions of 
Ezekiel and John are in the highest degree sublime. 
The impressions produced upon those who beheld the 
Mosaic forms, carved or beaten out of gold, or embroi- 
dered on curtains, or sculptured in relief, may have been 
impressive, but were less grand and awful. Some of 
the ethnic forms disentombed from Assyrian ruins, still 
bear traces of majestic meaning. Most, however, of the 
ethnic forms, — fainter and fainter copies of the Eden 
original, and more and more grotesque as religion grew 
more corrupt, — retain no trace of dignity or grandeur ; 
their pictured outlines are but caricatures serving to 
degrade what they should illustrate. 

From the descriptions given of the cherubim, as seen 
in vision, it is conceived that the figures were essentially 
the same ; the differences of detail resulting from the 
different standpoint of the seer, and being evidently of 
that kind to be easily accounted for by the laws of per- 



THE CHERUBIM. 135 

spective, foreshortening relief, &c. ; complex, four-faced, 
six-winged, predominantly human, inseparably connected 
with the Throne, whether seen beneath it, or hovering 
over it. 

Behold, suspended in air, a crystalline circular throne 
floor, upborne by four glorified human forms, looking 
outward ; forms symmetrical and beautiful, nay, unspeak- 
ably sublime, — the lower animal elements suppressed, 
thrown behind, as of humanity triumphant over the 
brutal ; sloughing off obsolescent forms in transitu to 
the angelic ; a princely humanity, aspiring, inspired, 
magnificent, divine. A humanity that was celestial, and 
is on its way back to celestial again, having passed 
through lower forms, now effete, outworn, and dis- 
carded. 

Upborne by these intensely beautiful glorified human 
forms full of mystery, intelligence, life-power, the com- 
plex throne pageant floats suspended in air, or rushes 
hither and thither without turning, with the velocity 
of a humming-bird, with the rush of wings like the 
roar of Niagara, like the noise of a host. It is not the 
throne, however, that absorbs our attention ; it is not the 
throne-bearers, beautiful and awful as they are : it is 
the Majesty upon the burning floor whose incandescent 
glory overwhelms us ! The attention is withdrawn 
from any sense of incongruity in the animal forms of the 
throne-bearers, and concentrated upon the general effect 
of life, beauty, and power. So in the general harmony 
of this material universe : whatever incongruities exist, 
are absorbed and lost in the general effect of the won- 
drous whole when bathed and blazing in the glorious 
sunlight. 

But it is humanity upon the throne, as well as human- 
ity beneath the throne on which we gaze ; it is in closest 
juxtaposition, the humiliation, and the glory ; — and 



136 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

the song which they sing is : " Thou hast redeemed us 
by thy blood." 

These are " the cherubim of glory," which were sta- 
tioned on the east of Eden. Waiving for the present 
the question of how they were stationed there, we ask 
the import of these emblems. And here we call to 
mind a familiar principle of all illustrative representa- 
tion, or object-teaching, viz., the occasional mixture of 
the real with the emblematic, the direct with the ana- 
logic ; as when the artist, in sketching some highly enig- 
matic group of emblems, throws in a portrait, or displays 
some well-known saying, or trait of individualism — so 
here, while the entire pageant is symbolic, there may 
be elements thrown in of direct significance. 

Suppose, in reproducing the vision before the mind's 
eye, in our own inner heavens and earth of thought, we 
place upon the throne the conventional form of the 
glorified Jesus, with the halo around his head ; with a 
scar on either hand or foot, as having been slain, — 
this would be what we mean by elements of the direct, 
mixed in with the symbolic. Such an element, it seems, 
is the song in which the cherubic forms take part : 
" Thou hast redeemed us by thy blood." 

Would it not seem, then, in the most general aspect, 
that the entire pageant was intended to represent, even 
at the threshold of civilization (on the line between his- 
toric and prehistoric), the predestined re-exaltation of 
humanity over the moral universe ? 

And is not such a conception singularly appropriate 
to the needs of inquiring humanity just now, when theo- 
ries of evolution through almost infinite stages of animal- 
ism are rife ? One of the most recent, reverential, and 
scholarly of commentators observes : " Even if it could 
be made probable that man is only an improved ape, no 
physiological reason can touch the question, whether 



THE CHERUBIM. 137 

God did not, when the improvement reached its right point, 
breathe into him a living soul. This at least would have 
constituted Adam a new creature, and fountain-head of 
a new race." * 

Another, equally distinguished, says : " We adhere to 
this : the body of man proceeds from propagation (tra- 
ducianism) ; the soul is created Qcreationism) ; the spirit 
is pre-existent, as the idea of God." 2 

Certainly there can be no physiological objection to 
evolution by transmigration ascending, or to evolution of 
.the bodily tabernacle, in readiness for its celestial guest. 
And at a time when such musings on such possibilities 
are obviously crowding upon the most sedate and schol- 
arly, as well as the most scientific, it may seem signifi- 
cant that such an emblem as this should meet our back- 
looking eye, just at that particular juncture, when " the 
improvement had reached its right point," and " the pre- 
existent spirit " was just breathed in. 

As though the great Architect of this material system, 
this world and all the orbs of space, anticipating the in- 
quiry of back-looking ages — What is the meaning and 
the object of a dispensation so mysterious, arid so pain- 
ful? — should say, This! — this is the end to be realized. 
Man, lowered a while below the throne-plane, shall ulti- 
mately be re-enthroned upon that plane in supreme do- 
minion over the entire intelligent universe. 

May it not also present, without perspective, some of 
the successive stages of that kingdom — as a tree may 
show marks of successive periods of growth ; as a per- 
fectly beautiful human form may show traces of differ- 
ent periods of development ? 

Even the glorified form upon the throne may seem to 
show traces of the thorns upon his brow — marks of nail 



1 Speaker's Commentary on Genesis. 

2 Lange, Comm. on Genesis. 



138 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 






and spear, " as having been slain." So his joint heirs 
may be exhibited as hovering above the mercy-seat, or 
as soaring up beneath it. 

But, most mysterious of all, they may appear with 
outgrown elements of the brute-creation strangely blend- 
ing with the human. Were there characteristic speci- 
mens of the whole animal kingdom, in earth, air, and sea, 
reptile and insect as well as bird and beast, one might 
be tempted to suspect a reference to some law of evolu- 
tion, or transmigration. But the principle of analogy is 
to look for the unknown relation, not on the physical 
plane, but on a higher plane. It is not the individual 
man, but man the race that is symbolized. It is an 
organization, a spiritual body politic. Now, in a good 
sense and in a bad sense, humanity has had traits in 
common with these animals. Man has been a bird of 
prey, like the eagle ; a wild beast, like the lion ; a beast 
of burden, like the ox, — but he has outgrown those 
stages, and the truly human has triumphed. 

It is said that on the four sides of the rectangular 
encampment of Israel in the desert (that miniature king- 
dom of Heaven), the four leading tribes emblazoned 
these figures on their standards. 

In a good sense, too, man has had traits in common 
with these forms. Under the ages of despotism he has 
borne heavy burdens with dull submission. Yet he has 
sometimes " mounted up with wings like eagles." And 
the Son of Man himself is the Lion of the tribe of Judah. 
But there is yet another emblematic sense possible. 

While the supremacy of man over all other orders in 
the intelligent universe, wild or tame, clean or unclean, 
is shadowed forth, — is it not also signified that those 
orders shall be in some sense sharers in man's elevation? 
Does he not lift with him, as it were, the whole depressed 
and suffering creation ; and do we not at the very gates 



THE CHERUBIM. 139 

of Eden see in this emblem so complex, so comprehen- 
sive, " the whole creation made subject to vanity, not 
willingly, but in hope that the creation itself shall be 
delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glori- 
ous liberty of the sons of God " ? 



140 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 



CHAPTER XX. 

THE FOUR EP7EES. 

The Eden narrative may have been written by Moses, 
after studying ancient documents. It may be itself an 
ancient document preserved in Egyptian archives, or 
handed down in the family line from Abraham. It may 
have been transmitted to Abraham from the date of the 
building of the tower of Babel. Whatever the nature 
of the event commonly described as the confusion of 
tongues, some relic of previous dialects, written and oral, 
may have been preserved. Nothing necessitates the 
belief that the language, previously spoken by the 
Noachidae, perished, or became a dead language. This 
document may have come down from the time before 
the flood ; it may even have been handed down from 
the days of Adam, and have been written by his hand. 

According to some Egj^ptologists, Mariette, Renan, 
Lesueur, &c, the great pyramid of Gizeh had been 
standing nearly two thousand years at the date of 
Adam's decease, according to the common chronology. 
According to others, Lepsius, Bunsen, Fergusson, &c, 
it had been in existence a century and a half at that 
date. Others, as Lane, Wilkinson, Rawlinson, Osburn, 
and Piazzi Smyth, would estimate the date of its com- 
pletion at from six hundred to nine hundred years after 
Adam's death. On any of these calculations, the exist- 
ence of a written literature in the world, at a far earlier 



THE FOUR HIVEES. 141 

period than that covered by the whole life of Adam, 
according to the Scripture chronology, is not incredible. 
This document, for aught that appears, may give us the 
dialect of Eden ; the ipsissima verba of Adam himself. 

But whatever its date, it is plain that in incorporating 
it in Genesis, Moses intended to give the facts, accord- 
ing to the best information extant in his day, respecting 
the geographical location of Eden. The obvious inten- 
tion of the narrative, as it seems to us, was to describe 
four great rivers flowing out of the same elevated region, 
and this impression is confirmed by the fact that the 
Hindu tradition, in common with most ethnic legends 
of paradise, has this feature of four rivers flowing out of 
the elevated region of Mount Meru. 

About two of these rivers, Euphrates and Tigris, there 
has never been any dispute. They rise within five miles 
of each other, in the highlands of Armenia. Two other 
rivers rise near these, on the opposite side of the water- 
shed. One of these, the Halys, flows seven hundred 
miles to the Euxine, through the region renowned in the 
ancient story of the Argonauts, the name Kolchis being 
a Grecianized Havilah. Another, the Araxes, flows a 
thousand miles into the Caspian, not through Ethiopia, 
as in the common version, but through the land of Kush 
— an ancient settlement, and probably the most ancient 
of the brethren of *Nimrod. 

But it is asked, How can a river be parted (down 
stream) into four rivers ? Geography, in speaking of 
branches of rivers, is looking up stream. Great rivers 
discharge through several channels into the sea, but those 
channels are called mouths, not heads nor branches. 

The answer given is (and here is a case where good 
Hebrew scholars disagree, and where Saxon common- 
sense has to judge between them), that in the expres- 
sion, " a river went out of Eden," the word " river " 



142 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

(Nahar) is used collectively, the singular for the plural 
to denote the irrigation system of the Eden district. 

" The writer seems to be describing the river system 
of the country, and the four great rivers into which the 
various waters became united. No one word would so 
well describe this as Nahar, used collectively. The word 
is thus used (Jonah xi. 4) in speaking of the ocean floods 
that surrounded the prophet. 1 " A curious illustration 
of this usage is found in the word " tears," the original 
being usually dimdh^ " tear," thus : " O that my head 
were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears." 2 Here 
our translators have rendered the singular " tear " by the 
plural " tears," simply because the connection required 
it. On the same principle they might have rendered 
verse 10 : " And 4 streams 'went out of Eden to water 
the garden." 

According to this view of the narrative, Eden was a 
large district in the highlands of Armenia ; the garden 
was situated somewhere near the water-shed, where 
springs and streams were numerous. It was a well- 
watered garden because it was in a well-watered region. 
Out of this Eden region (not necessarily out of the 
garden), formed from innumerable springs and rivulets, 
four great streams depart towards the four points of the 
compass, descending towards the lowlands. 

The first of these rivers, Pison, is the smallest, the 
most obscure, and most difficult of identification. Its 
treasures are barbaric gold, and gems unknown. The 
second, Gihon, is larger, better known, and of more hisr 
toric prominence, though relatively obscure. The third, 
Hiddekel, Tigris, is still larger, — longer, — of greater 
commercial and historical importance, and its waters 
flowed by the walls of that great city Nineveh. The 

i Prof. S. C. Bartlett, in Smith's Biblical Dictionary (Hackett's edition). 
2 Jer. ix. 1. Compare also Psalms vi. 7 ; xxxix. 13; lvi. 9. 



THE FOUR RIVERS. 143 

fourth, Euphrates, the largest and longest, is called in 
Scripture " the great river," and has the most promi- 
nent historic and commercial rank. On its banks flour- 
ished Babylon the great, the golden city, which has left 
so profound an impress on the science, art, literature, 
and religion of the civilized world. 

Assyrian and Babylonian remains are being dis- 
entombed, carrying us back to a great antiquity, and 
the oldest race and language which has there left traces 
of itself is the Accadian. Now, " accadian " means 
"mountaineer." And when a dweller in Mesopotamia 
calls himself a " mountaineer," or highlander, we are 
naturally referred, not to the Hindu Kush a thousand 
miles or more to the eastward, but to the noble plateau 
of Armenia, whence the tide of immigration naturally 
descended along the banks of the two noble rivers, 
Euphrates and Tigris. 1 

Four rivers are described, of four degrees of volume, 
notoriety, historic influence, and association ; rivers 
which have a common origin in one of the noblest moun- 
tain plateaus in the world, — six or seven thousand feet 
above sea-level, and about equidistant from four great 
seas, the highways of primitive colonization and com- 
merce, the Euxine, Caspian, Mediterranean seas, and 
Persian Gulf. A vast plain, or succession of plains, the 
result of volcanic action, above which glows and gleams 
the peak of Ararat, grander, more worthy of the title 
monarch of mountains than " Sovran Blanc " himself. 

" It appeared," says Ker Porter, "as if the highest 
mountains of the world had been piled upon each other, 
to form this one sublime immensity of earth, and rocks, 
and snow. The icy peaks of its double heads rose ma- 

1 When a citizen of Perth or Glasgow speaks of Highlanders or mountain- 
eers, is it possible to understand him as thinking of the inhabitants of the 
Swiss Alps ? 



144 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

jestically into the clear and cloudless heavens, the sun 
blazed bright upon them, and the reflection sent forth a 
dazzling radiance equal to other suns. My eye, not 
able to rest for any length of time upon the blinding 
glory of its summits, wandered down the apparently 
interminable sides, till I could no longer trace their vast 
lines in the mists of the horizon, when an irrepressible 
impulse immediately carrying my eye upwards, again 
fixed my gaze upon the awful glare of Ararat." 

Surely, if these four rivers, issuing forth from such a 
region, are emblematic as well as real, they constitute 
features of a tableau of unsurpassed and even sublime 
significance. Of what, then, are they the emblem ? 

Water is, indeed, a natural emblem of purification 
and refreshment, when considered as an element in its 
relation to the body and to life. But waters in motion, 
as a mechanical agent, or in their effects upon the 
shores, cities, and populations affected thereby, are also 
a natural emblem, universally recognized. Men in- 
stinctively speak of the stream of time, the tide of 
population, the fountains and springs of civilization, the 
wave of immigration, &c. 

This natural analogy is employed frequently in the 
Bible. Isaiah predicted an invasion of Palestine by 
saying, " Behold the Lord bringeth upon them the wa- 
ters strong and many, even the king of Assyria and all 
his glory, and he shall come up over all his channels and 
go over all his banks." x The imager}^ of this passage 
is borrowed from an inundation of one of the four Eden 
rivers. So Jeremiah exclaims, " Thus saith the Lord, 
Behold, waters rise up out of the north, and shall be an 
overflowing flood, and shall overflow the land." 2 The 
surprise and capture of Babylon is also foretold, thus: 
" How is Sheshach taken ! and how is the praise of the 

1 Is. viii. 7. 2 Jer. xlvii. 2. 



THE FOUR RIVERS. 145 

whole earth surprised ! how is Babylon become an as- 
tonishment among the nations ! The sea is come up 
upon Babylon : she is covered with the multitude of the 
waves thereof." 2 

One of the most prominent emblems in Revelation is 
great Babjdon and the river Euphrates, and it is worthy 
of particular notice that the emblem is in part inter- 
preted for us by the revealing angel : " The waters 
which thou sawest are peoples and multitudes and 
nations and tongues." 2 

Notice, here, that the interpreter does not say these 
waters are the emblem of " influences," of " principles," 
or of abstractions of any kind, but of "peoples," &c; 
for influences and ideas exist, and can exist, only in and 
through living agents. The same is true of the mystic 
river seen by Ezekiel flowing out from the sanctuary, 3 
and of the river of life seen by John in Revelation. 4 We 
should not regard them as denoting mere " influences," 
or abstract " principles," but tides of population, vivified 
by the influences of the Holy Spirit. On the one 
hand, tides of population flowing in from generation to 
generation, animated by a spirit of pride, fraud, and 
cruelty, have built up great civil and spiritual despotisms, 
like Babylon on Euphrates, or Rome on Tiber. On the 
other hand, tides of population, sanctified from the 
womb, and animated with truth, meekness, and love 
(fruits of the Spirit), will build up social and spiritual 
organizations like the New Jerusalem ; that is, as dif- 
ferent from the despotisms of past ages as the New 
Jerusalem would be from Old Babylon. 

In general, it may be said, these four rivers, flowing 
from the Eden highlands to the four points of the com- 
pass, down upon the lowlands, two of them with the 

1 Jer. li. 41 , 42. 2 Rev. xvii. 15. 3 Ezek. xlvii. 4 Rev. xxii. 

10 



146 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

most famous cities of antiquity on their banks, and 
two without, constitute a very suggestive complex em- 
blem of the influx of life, the origin and course of 
nations. 

Some, like the Halys and the Araxes, obscure, bar- 
baric, or partially civilized, and whose bearing upon his- 
toric development is less obvious; some, like Tigris and 
Euphrates, the main channels of civilization and reli- 
gious development, and prominent factors in the world's 
history. It is in its nature such a tableau, or frame- 
work of a tableau, as to be capable of repeating itself, 
under other names, in other quarters of the globe ; 
whether we embrace the hypothesis of a primeval tradi- 
tion extended by conquest or colonization, or by archaic 
missionary zeal ; or the hypothesis of innate causes 
working similar effects in similar circumstances ; or 
whether we admit the possibility of both, — we have 
an emblem, or group of emblems, which, like several of 
the Apocalyptic symbols (or like an algebraic expression), 
can adjust itself to a number of possible verifications. 

These four rivers may shadow forth a certain fourfold 
influx of life from another and a loftier world, in differ- 
ent lines and in different degrees of historic prominence, 
influence, and power ; in a certain fourfold succession, the 
Euphratean being the latest, and now in full flow. So 
that as the drying of the bed of that river was the signal 
for the capture of ancient Babylon, so the drying up of 
the Euphratean influx may portend the downfall of spir- 
itual Babylon, and the approach of the millennial era. 

And as the other three rivers are less prominent, and 
one of them obscurely identifiable, so the thought is 
suggested of races less and less historic, increasingly 
obscure as we ascend the ages, until we reach traces of 
prehistoric tribes, now perhaps extinct. 

In the present state of ethnological research, it be- 



THE FOUR RIVERS. 147 

comes us to be wary in attempting definite specifications 
of this fourfoldness of influx. Above all, when fresh 
archgeological discoveries are being made every day, and 
buried libraries being disentombed, it would be foolish 
to dogmatize. 

But even with our present limited degree of research, 
there are certain striking facts, certain singular coinci- 
dences, if we can call them nothing more. There is a 
certain fourfold classification of human languages, which 
constitutes one of the deepest problems of anthropol- 
ogy. There are the isolating or monosyllabic tongues, 
like the Chinese ; the agglutinative, of which the Turk- 
ish is a specimen ; the polysynthetic, such as the abori- 
ginal dialects of America ; and the inflexional, like the 
Sanscrit, and most modern civilized tongues. 

Whether language has developed from unity through 
these four stages, or from multiplicity has collected 
itself into four streams on the way to unity, is matter 
of debate. But the fact of the fourfoldness is undeni- 
able. And three of these stages of language, it is con- 
ceded, "mark successive levels of civilization. Man- 
kind progresses, as a whole, but the several steps of 
advance are made by the appearance of different races 
on the scene, each with his mission, each with his pre- 
determined method of accomplishing it." 1 

These four great differences of language, not of mere 
words only, but of the very framework and spirit of 
grammar, seem to be innate in the diversity of the very 
soul itself. " External circumstances will modify and 
alter, but large as their influence may be, there yet re- 
mains an insoluble, unchangeable residuum, which we 
call the character or instincts of race." 

44 We are apt to underrate the extent of the psycho- 
logical change that is implied in the passage from one 

1 Sayce. Comp. Philology, p. 173. 



148 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

of these modes of thought to the other. It is little 
short of a radical metamorphosis of the mind." x 

Now, whether or not the further progress of dis- 
covery shall break in pieces " the idolum of primitive 
centers," and establish the theory of as many origins as 
there be dewdrops to collect into rivulets, rivulets to 
trickle into streams, and streams to flow down into 
rivers, the fact of the innate fourfold diversities of 
souls remains. 

"As we grope far back in the past, we discover three 
prominent families of nations appearing on the field of 
history ; . . . from them have flown down through history 
three broad streams of language and family, covering 
most of the ancient continents, and possibly embracing 
all the various rivulets of speech and race which inter- 
lace with one another in such apparent confusion, along 
the whole course of human progress. They are the 
Turanian, the Semitic, and the Aryan. To these three 
families may be added a fourth, which, though probably 
only the earliest appearance of crystallization of the 
Semitic, cannot, with the evidence yet obtained, be 
thoroughly identified with either of the others, the 
Hamitic." 2 

With the cause of this fourfoldness of human lan- 
guage we are told glottology has nothing to do. " We 
must go back to those incalculably distant centuries 
when our earliest progenitors trembled before the mam- 
moth and the cave-bear." 3 

Let us, however, be sure that facts warrant our so 
doing. Let us be wary, and admit the possibility that 
geologic computations have been greatly exaggerated. 
But if we are finally authorized thus to go back, let us 
take with us two hypotheses which the great conflicting 
linguistic schools alike ignore — the hypothesis of a four- 

1 Sayce, p. 145. 2 Brace. Races of the World, p. 26. 3 Sayce, p. 175. 



THE FOUR RIVERS. 149 

fold influx, and the hypothesis that Adam is the last of 
the four, instead of the first. The language in which 
the narrative represents Adam as speaking, is an inflex- 
ional language. It so appears on the surface. There is 
no hint that the story was ever couched in an earlier 
dialect of which this is a translation. As the drama 
stands, Adam is not a monosyllabic, agglutinative, nor 
polysynthetic savage or nomad. He treads the stage 
an inflexional-tongued pioneer of modern civilization. 
And Dr. McCausland well remarks, when philosophers 
"find that the Adam of Genesis has not been revealed 
as the first-born of all humanity, they will more readily 
permit the races of mankind to be marshalled according 
to the laws of nature. . . . Scripture and ethnology will 
no longer look upon each other with suspicion." 1 

Above all, let us take with us in our archaic re- 
searches the hypothesis of a fourfold influx. Why 
should it be thought more scientific to conduct our eth- 
nological investigations upon the hypothesis of the soul's 
material origin than upon the hypothesis of influx ? 
Apart from theological prepossessions, apart from the 
question of revelation, why, if there be a soul, is it 
more after the method of true Science, to suppose it 
coeval with its fleshly tabernacle, than to suppose it more 
ancient ? Would not even the hypothesis of a qualified 
metempsychosis (or transmigration ascending} be prefer- 
able with philosophic thinkers, to that of materialism ? 

" Stripped of all extravagance, and expressed in the 
modest terms of probability, the theory [of metempsy- 
chosis] has immense speculative interest and great ethi- 
cal value. It appears as one of the very earliest be- 
liefs of the human mind in tribes not emerged from 
barbarism. It remains the creed of millions at this day. 
It is probably the most widely-spread, and permanently 

1 Adam and the Adamite, p. 238. 



150 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

influential of all speculative theories as to the origin and 
destiny of the soul." 2 

Look down from off old Babylon's walls upon the turbu- 
lent Euphrates, swift-rolling seaward. Every individual 
drop of those swollen waters, though now mingled in 
one discolored tide, was once sparkling and bright in 
rills from the flanks of Ararat ; yea, floated in vapor in 
the clouds, far above that awful summit of glory. Its 
crystal clearness is stained, its beauty dimmed, but its 
individuality is only hidden, not lost ; it is the self- 
same element that descended, and shall yet ascend 
again by omnipotent lawi and float above that summit 
in its native ether. 

" Des MenscTien Seele 
Gleicht dem Wasser : 
Vom Himmel kommt es, 
Zum Himmel steigt es" 2 

" Rivers to the ocean run, 

Nor stay in all their course ; 
Fire, ascending, seeks the sun ; 
Both speed them to their source." 3 

But if the hypothesis of influx be important in its 
bearing upon scientific speculation, much more so is it 
in its bearings on spiritual problems, especially those 
couched in the object-teaching system of Scripture. If 
it is a simple historical fact that that hypothesis was at 
the basis of the world's thought when the Bible was 
written, then it underlies interpretation, especially the 
interpretation of the emblems of Eden and of the New 
Jerusalem. 

The Eden tableau is like a majestic portal covered all 
over with inscriptions, telling us why the bannered 

1 William Knight, Fortnightly Eeview, Sept. 1, 1878, p. Ml. 
a Gothe, 3 Doddridge. 



THE FOUR RIVERS. 151 

hosts come marching through toward the Armageddon 
battlefield. It is a feud of ages, a race-conflict, a 
contest for a crown, that is here to be decided ; not 
for the crown of one poor world like this, nor of a 
whole galaxy of suns (which are but the dust of his 
feet), but for the crown of the moral universe. To 
this end was this whole material system created ; x that 
the moral universe, long divided and distracted, under 
its first imperial head, may be restored to unity (d^a^eqoa- 
lai&oaodaC) under its second ; 2 by whom Eternal Love 
seeks " to reconcile all things unto himself, whether 
things on earth or things in Heaven." 3 

And the moral grandeur of the victory will be in that 
it has been accomplished by the unselfish disinterested- 
ness of the Victor, without the fracture of the finest 
filament of honor, magnanimity, or fair-dealing. 

The principalities and powers combined as organiza- 
tions against him are dissolved by the fires of a pure 
and holy public sentiment ; and while the history of 
those organizations is forever regarded with righteous 
abhorrence, the individuals composing those organiza- 
tions, if they continue to exist, seek new combinations 
in a perhaps not wholly joyless, though obscure existence. 

Such is the law of hyperbole — hyperbole ascending 
and descending. Whenever hyperbole lies in the direc- 
tion of good, language means more than it says ; when- 
ever in the direction of evil and pain, it means less. 
Therefore there will be in the full tide of victory no 
reaction of public sentiment occasioned by excessive 
severity toward the vanquished. But all the figures 
by which the Spirit has from the beginning presaged the 
glory that is to be revealed will be found faint and 
feeble, compared with the reality. It will be a glory 
that will overtop the mountains, and flood the deepest 

i Eph. iv. 10. 2 Eph. i. 10. 3 Col. i. 20. 



152 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

caves, and fill the earth, as the waters fill the sea. It 
will be a glory that will only begin to be realized when 
heaven and earth have passed away. 

But the most wonderful thing about it is, that it is 
the glory of the redeemed race of man. " To him that 
overcometh will I grant to sit with me upon my throne, 
as I overcame, and am seated with my Father on his 
throne." 1 Well may the apostle call this xaff <ntBq§olriv 
sla i)7t8Qfiolty aidviov @6cqog doZrjg, " a far more exceeding and 
eternal weight of glory." 2 A glory growing more glo- 
rious from hyperbole to hyperbole forever ! 

* Rev. iii. 21. 2 2 Cor. iv. 17. 



COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY. 153 



CHAPTER XXI. 

COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY. 

We view the tableaux of Eden, of the Wilderness, 
and of- the New Jerusalem as three successive forms of 
one and the same symbolic scheme. They are essentially 
one in their main features, though modified in details 
to correspond with three important crises or stages of 
development of the all-comprehending plan of universal 
history. 

At the close of the Eden tableau, the power hostile 
to man is veiled from sight within the paradisaic enclos- 
ure, a conqueror. In the Levitical tableau, he is men- 
tioned under the title Azazel, but is not brought upon 
the stage. He is briefly referred to as a mysterious 
power behind the scenes. His domain is not merely the 
desert, but the indefinite region outside of and encom- 
passing the camp ; that is to say, the exterior or visible 
world. He is thus relatively contrasted with Jehovah, 
whose localization is within, in the deepest, profoundest 
interior. In the New Jerusalem tableau, he disappears 
from the stage altogether. 

There is a profound significance in this threefold sym- 
bolization. In the first, as has been shown, his at- 
tempted removal from his primacy having failed, he 
remained the external image, or official embodiment (to 
creature eye), of Jehovah. Thus we gain the concep- 
tion of an outward representative of God and an inward 



154 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

reality, and a discrepancy between them. The outward 
no longer correctly interprets or expresses the inward 
or essential reality. Yet until legitimately, and, so to 
speak, constitutionally removed, the Divine Government 
is held more or less responsible. It cannot safely and 
consistently disavow its own constituted representative. 
Yet he is to be separated, discerned, disallowed, in order 
to a right revelation of the true, a re-embodiment in 
Christ, the younger Morning Star, the Second Head of 
Empire. Hence, in the tableau in the Wilderness, the 
contrasted direction, — inward at the deepest center, 
Jehovah ; outward to the widest bounds of created 
things, Azazel. Between these extremes, a mediator 
emblematically represented as dealing with both. 

In the Eden tableau, the prime-anointed, the author- 
ized, yet incorrect representative remains triumphant 
Within the Garden. Emblematically, there is no sign of 
exclusion, of separation (except in the curse, which is 
wholly prospective). But in the Levitical tableau there 
appears the extreme of contrast, Jehovah within, Azazel 
without, shadowing forth, not an accomplished fact in 
the past, but a to be accomplished fact in the future. 

The two goats on the great day of atonement (Lev. 
xvi.) are one. The second takes up the role of the first, 
which is slain, and completes it. The one is for Jeho- 
vah, the other for Azazel. The blood of the former 
is sprinkled within the inmost adytum ; the latter goes 
without the camp to Azazel. It is a double emblem 
denoting Christ, dealing with the true Jehovah and with 
his official representative, the world-ruler, who by cor- 
ruption has become a false embodiment of Jehovah, and 
suggesting a future discrimination of the two as conse- 
quent upon Christ's agency, both at the center of the 
moral universe and throughout its remotest bounds, to 



COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY. 155 

produce that discrimination, so that the incorrect em- 
bodiment should recede indefinitely from the true. 

This gives us a standpoint from which to estimate the 
contrasted development of Ethnic and Scriptural sys- 
tems. In the scriptural system, patriarchal and Jewish, 
Christ was endeavoring to reveal his idea of the true 
character of God, and to organize society upon it ; while 
in the ethnic systems the original first-born, and as yet 
de facto sovereign of all worlds, was endeavoring to 
reveal His idea as a better one. 

At the same time each would, within certain limits, 
interfere with the proceedings of the other. Christ, 
although postponing ethnic systems, would, by the 
analogies of nature, and the movings of the Spirit, and 
the reaction of Judaism, infuse some of his influences 
into those systems ; and on the other hand, the antago- 
nistic intelligence would pursue a similar course towards 
the revelation going on in Israel. 

If, then, there be any elements of pride, of fraud, or 
of cruelty in the character of Jehovah as revealed in the 
Old Testament, they should be accounted for in this 
way. We say this, not as conceding that such elements 
do exist, but in view of the fact that they are so loudly 
and earnestly alleged to exist, and as indicating our 
entire willingness to meet the issue candidly, and hear 
attentively all that ever has been, or can be fairly alleged 
in that behalf. 

Christ was carrying on the revealing process under 
great disadvantages. He had to contend not only with 
the innate waywardness and indocility of mankind, and 
the uncongeniality of the human instruments he was 
constrained to employ as media of communication, but 
he had also to guard against the influences of the jealous 
cosmocracy whom he was seeking to dethrone. But the 
cosmocratic movement, despite its advantage of position, 



156 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

was not free from difficulties. It had the same way- 
wardness, indocility, and turbulence of mankind to con- 
tend with, being unavoidably limited to a lower range 
of motives, while it had also its own inward inconsisten- 
cies, incongruities, and misgivings. Ethnic mythology 
is wild and chaotic in part because it is the slumbrous 
dreaming of the exiled race. It is the restless child 
talking in his sleep. Afar from our native skies we 
sigh and groan in the shadowy night-watches. Vague 
memories, incoherent reminiscences escape our somnam- 
bulic lips. Half sleeping, half waking, the nations whis- 
per back and forth, telling their visions. The deep 
buried intuitions of the soul come to the surface, stimu- 
lated by the powerful analogies of nature; stimulated by 
the sorrows of life, and by the Spirit of God. They 
mingle confusedly with the stern and dire realities of 
the present as they go by and form history, and are 
magnified, and distorted into legend and myth. The 
imprisoned spirit, mighty in its nature, grand and glori-, 
ous in its primeval state, writhes under the degradation 
of its ignorance and wrestles with the awful problems 
of the past, the present, and the future, — God, angels, 
man, animals, nature. Whence this groaning, travail- 
ing creation ? Whence, and whither ? 

From age to age the dreaming race moans and sighs 
in sorrow. Those mutterings, those whisperings, those 
agonized wrestlings, those snatches of songs once sung 
in Heaven, not quite drenched with the Lethe stream — 
those responses to the questions of nature and the 
Spirit, gathered up from age to age, constitute, in part, 
mythology. 

But ethnic systems were incongruous, chaotic, and 
contradictory for another reason, namely, because pride 
and guile and selfishness are themselves discordant, and 
out of due moral order. Symmetry belongs to goodness. 



COMPAEATIVE THEOLOGY. 157 

Certainty and inward peace belong to truth. The pure 
in heart see God. Skepticism is by no means confined 
to this world. The great, leading schemes of philosophy, 
and of the theology of the ages, are but projections 
from the invisible realm. 

It is inconsistent, no doubt, for an angel to claim to 
represent God, and yet to doubt or deny the being of 
God, and assert his own uncreated existence. Yet the 
conception is not an impossible one, and when expressed 
in poetic form, strikes no mind with a sense of improba- 
bility. 

.... " Rememberest thou 
Thy making while the Maker gave thee being ? 
We know no time when we were not as now ; 
Know none before us, self-begot, self-raised 
By our own quickening power, when 
Had circled his fatal course, the birth-mature 
Of this our native heaven etherial sons." l 

It is a well-known fact that some of the highest eccle- 
siastical dignitaries, in times of corruption, have been 
skeptics, and even atheists, while claiming to be the 
representatives and vicegerents of Christ. What is 
possible in this world is possible in any other world. 
Hence, #^hen Swedenborg describes his meeting with 
atheistic spirits in the invisible realm, the representa- 
tion is not in itself incredible or unnatural. Far more 
probable is it, on a priori grounds, that the false philoso- 
phies and false theologies of this world, with all their 
self-contradictions, should owe their constant inconsis- 
tency to an. unseen source, being but the reflex of the 
speculative cosmocratic intellect in its vacillating moods 
and phases from age to age. 

It is also inconsistent that the cosmocratic powers 
should both assert their own being and claim divine 
honors, and yet deny their own existence, or represent 

1 Paradise Lost, Book V., 857-863. Compare Book IX., 145. 



158 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

themselves as infernal, brutal, grotesque, monstrous. 
But it is not more inconsistent than the devices and 
methods of earthly ambition in seeking to allure or to 
alarm the masses, and seduce or subdue them to their 
implicit obedience. And it is from this standpoint that 
we see the unlikeness of the Bible view of the cosmo- 
cratic power to the view presented in ethnic systems — 
unlikeness in the midst of resemblances. 

1. Ethnic systems are voluble on the problem of evil, 
while the Bible is taciturn. The former are over-com- 
municative, the latter so reserved, so austerely guarded, 
that many (ignoring the amazing condensation of mean- 
ing in a few quiet emblems) have said that the idea of a 
hostile kingdom and king does not appear till post- 
exilian dates. But Egypt was as voluble and emphatic 
as Babylon or Persia. 

2. Ethnic systems dressed up the infernus with all 
possible horrors, and represented its king as a gloomy 
and dreadful tormentor. And from our standpoint we 
see why. The cosmocracy, in endeavoring to reveal the 
true character of God as they understood it, and estab- 
lish right rule on earth (better than Christ could do in 
Israel), found they had a difficult, if not impossible task, 
and by the necessity of the situation resorted to intimi- 
dation. But the Mosaic system never did this. The 
Adversary is nowhere in the Bible represented as an 
infernal being, or as dwelling in Hades, or as particularly 
related to Hades. He has the power of death, and 
authority over the world of the dead, as part of his gen- 
eral original dominion over the universe. But princes 
do not reside in their state-prison. The palace of a 
monarch and the dungeon of his captives are usually 
two different places. The first time in Scripture where 
Hades becomes the abode of the Adversary is in Rev. 
xx. 2, 3 ; and that event is still future. The horrors of 



COMPAEATIVE THEOLOGY. 159 

the under-world, the entire array of post-mortem terrors, 
is of cosmocratic origin, as a much-needed and a conven- 
ient method of control. Moses would have none of it. 
The appeal of Judaism was to temporal motives. The 
sanctions of the law were all in this life ; and Jesus point- 
edly approved the sufficiency of the method by saying, 
"If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither would 
they be persuaded though one rose from the dead." It 
is as though Christ had said : If temporal sanctions such 
as I through Moses employed avail not to produce good 
government here on earth, neither will post-mortem 
terrors avail such as my opponent has used in ethnic 
systems. 

3. Ethnic systems, notwithstanding their unwieldy 
vastness, their heterogeneousness and inconsistence, yet 
contrived to give views of the cosmocratic powers cal- 
culated to conceal, to falsify, to palliate, or to justify 
the course of invisible empire, and cast doubt and dis- 
credit upon that peculiar manifestation Christ was con- 
ducting in and through Israel. Thus the Bible is the 
most pronounced and accentuated antithesis of ethnic 
mythology, contradicting several of its most important 
teachings respecting the grand opposing intellectual 
camps dividing the universe. And Christ distinctly 
affirms that it is to a true study and perception of the 
power opposed to himself that the Holy Spirit is to con- 
duct the human mind, and that his judgment will be the 
judgment of this world. " He (the Spirit) shall con- 
vince the world of judgment because the Prince of this 
world is judged." 

All despotisms in all ages, civil and ecclesiastical, 
have, in one form or another, asserted the Jure divino 
claim, and thus have written the name of God upon the 
imperial brow. All organized wrongs claim to be right, 
and all reforms are resisted and denounced as wrongs. 



160 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

Christ himself was crucified as a blasphemer, and with 
his dying breath apologized for his murderers. " They 
know not what they do." In this, as well as in their 
self-righteousness, they were images of the great de- 
ceiver, who is ipso facto the great deceived ; for if the 
light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that dark- 
ness ! There is no darkness like that of a great mind 
wholly astray, yet with all the powers of his being 
believing what is not the fact. 

All the controversies of the age are more and more 
closely revolving about this focal question, What system 
in philosophy and religion, what party in church and 
state, most truly represents God. The lines are not 
drawn with the good all on one side, and the bad on the 
other. Good men are very much divided. Bad men 
are very much divided. There is much confusion in the 
moral and political melee ; and many are so confounded 
that they know not what to believe, or where to take 
refuge. The persons and parties who are on the wrong 
side, do not appear to know it. They seem to be all 
claiming to be righting for God; or if not for God, at 
least for goodness, truth, and right. And so far from 
having the appearance of thinking themselves deceived, 
or on the wrong side, the assailants of Christianity have 
the appearance of intense conviction of being in the 
right, and of enthusiastic anticipation of coming victory. 
Hear how they speak of the defenders of the Christian 
faith : " They know all the while that before the ad- 
vancing line of positive thought, they are fighting a for- 
lorn hope, and they see their own line daily more and 
more demoralized by the consciousness that they have no 
rational plan of campaign. They know that their own 
account of the soul, of the spiritual life, of Providence, 
of Heaven, is daily shifting, is growing more vague, 
more inconsistent, more various. They hurry wildly 



COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY. 161 

from one untenable position to another, like a routed 
and disorganized army." 1 

Similar expressions, the sincerity of which cannot be 
questioned, abound on every hand. We believe a 
similar state of mind to be possible to the invisible 
intelligences opposed to Christ. Not that it represents 
their calm and constant mental attitude ; but that, 
desperate as their cause may at times appear, at other 
times, by the inconsistency proper to the selfish, the 
guileful, the proud and self-deceived, they are exhil- 
arated with temporary success, and intoxicated with 
vaticinations of triumph. And should it ever happen 
that in some supreme moment of mingled desperation 
and delight, their chief should descend upon the scene 
in human form to seize the auspicious juncture and 
strike the trembling balances to victory, it would not 
be surprising were he to be hailed by myriads as a 
deliverer ; it is even conceivable that he would be 
viewed by a considerable portion of that which calls 
itself Christendom as a dazzling and splendid divine 
manifestation, come to effect, as by magic, those social 
reforms which the Man of Sorrows has vainly tried to 
accomplish. 

Now we are all sufferers in the tremendous contro- 
versy ; and we are in danger of judging one another 
harshly, of using indiscriminate censure, and thus insen- 
sibly falling into the main fault of the opposing chief, i.e., 
Slander. The title, devil, means slanderer. It would 
be well to discard the untranslated title, which, like an 
old note, has become foul, infected, and stenchful, and 
substitute the translated title, which describes the thing 
itself. He who upholds a good cause, even the cause of 
God as he regards it, by excessive severity, by indis- 

1 Frederic Harrison. The Nineteenth Century, June, 1877. 
11 



162 THE EDEN TABLEAU. 

criminate denunciation, by exaggeration, by misrepre- 
sentation of persons, practices, and motives, becomes 
insensibly a slanderer ; and as men in this world may be 
slanderers without properly realizing it, nay, sometimes 
glorying in their zeal for God, so it may have been, so 
it may still be, with the cosmocratic chief. 

What every true man should desire is to take sides 
with his race, and not with a hostile race ; with human- 
ity in its divine ideal conception, and not with some- 
thing inhuman and anti-human. What every manly 
and earnest heart wants is to be loyal to man's real 
Friend, the Child of the Race, the Son of Man, the 
race's Head and King. And it is no degradation, but 
an exquisite pleasure, penitently to kneel at his feet, and 
taking the oath of allegiance, ask amnesty for all past 
disloyalty. He truly represents God for us. He is the 
perfect moral image and likeness of infinite truth, infinite 
right, infinite love ; and all persons and systems in this 
world, or any other, misrepresent God in proportion as 
they recede from him. 

Now, when it comes to be seen what the actual his- 
tory of the contrasted powers has been, the intelligent 
verdict of earthly- public sentiment will correspond to 
that of Heaven purged by the blood (emblem of suffer- 
ings) of the risen Jesus. The intelligent disapprobation 
of earthly public sentiment will be like a lake of fire to 
those powers affected by it. On the other hand, the 
sight of what Christ has suffered, not merely on Cal- 
vary, but in the whole course of his redeeming work, 
and of the spotless character he has shown throughout, 
will excite a feeling of grateful love and admiration we 
can now only faintly conceive. 

"And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels 
round about the throne, and the living ones, and the 
elders, and the number of them was ten thousand times 



COMPARATIVE THEOLOGY. 163 

ten thousand, and thousands of thousands, saying, with 
a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to 
receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, 
and honor, and glory, and blessing ; and every creature 
which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the 
earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in 
them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honor, and glory, 
and power be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, 
and unto the Lamb forever and ever." 



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